


20,000 Leagues Into God Knows Where

by F1nch



Category: Original Work
Genre: "We're not gonna kill these kids but what happens in the depths of space happens", Abusive Relationships, Aliens, Camp Nanowrimo, Cyberpunk, Dogs, Earth has two moons don't ask why cause I don't know myself, Emotional support animal, Explosions, F/F, F/M, Hacking, I know nothing about astro physics, Intermission, M/M, Mind Control, NaNoWriMo, Not Beta Read, Original Fiction, Science Fiction, Service Dogs, Shibe - Freeform, Short Chapters, Space Opera, Treason, Unfinished - May be continued, caste system, cyberspace, minor cussing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 40
Words: 25,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F1nch/pseuds/F1nch
Summary: Earth is at peace, and humans have moved all over the solar system, creating peaceful cities and lives.But could a single flight school put them all in danger? And can a group of first-year students save them?Five freshmen are sent on a space mission without knowing the danger it entails. And now one of them is dating an alien.Inspired by Voltron: Legendary Defender and Homestuck.Special thanks to paraTactician, as their work The Vienna Game served as a huge inspiration.Expect errors as this has not been proofread and is more of a draft than anything.





	1. Prologue

Adonis Cadaver watched as a tall, black-haired girl rushed past him in the academy hallway, swerving around him as cutting him off as he went. The 16 year old let out a small grunt, adjusted the white, minimalistic headphones atop his head, and continued walking.  
The straight, light blue hallways of the Apollo Institute for the Future of Interplanetary Studies and Exploration, or AFIE for short, stretched out endlessly ahead of him, branching out in who knows how many places. Regardless, the teenager continued forwards in a straight line, bumping into several science and communications members rushing from lab to lab, arms laden with papers, lab equipment, and even a few cages holding mice.  
The bell rung, loudly. Adonis hardly heard it beneath his headphones. While still looking at the floor, he shoved open the large, metal door at the end of the hallway. Immediately, a gust of wind blew aside his long black hair, which hung down to his neck and stuck out at the sides. He took off his headphones and slid them to the back of his neck. His music still faintly played, creating a strange ambiance that only he could hear.  
He pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and looked to his left. Through the glass lenses, he saw the main attraction of the room:  
The ship.  
Students gathered here all the time, just hoping to see a glance of the magnificent thing taking off. It was sleek, and compact. Comprised of no more than a small body with a sloping roof, three thrusters spread out like a tail feathers of a bird, and two folded wings that would bend and move to swoop through the sky. A retired space exploration vessel, it gave students the perfect hands-on learning environment. Engineers could tinker with it, pilots got to see the dashboard, scientists could analyze the ship's structure. But, what everyone really liked about it, what made it the talk of the whole academy, were the rumors that it could fly. In the hallways, kids whispered that when there was an emergency that needed all ships, its three thrusters would begin to spit, its wings would unfold, and the piloting teacher himself would steer the vessel skyward.  
That was why Adonis was there, and why he had skipped out on lunch to be there. The school's chat-rooms, student-created, of course, were abuzz. A pilot had heard from a communications specialist that said she had overheard a conversation of two scientists, saying that an emergency call had been placed after a, “vessel of small size entered the atmosphere of our earth with no discernible reason explainable by mankind,”  
So, in layman’s terms, also known as “pilot's terms” at the academy, a UFO had entered earth's atmosphere, and, somehow, against all odds, had not been been burned up, and had landed on the surface. According to all scientists whom had been consulted on the matter, this was completely and utterly impossible. A vessel of such small size should have been burned to a crisp. But, alas, it hadn't, and now, a considerable amount of excitable teenagers had gathered in the hanger, eager to glance as the magnificent vessel took off.  
They waited with glee and plenty of excited chatter, but, to everyone's disappointment, nothing happened, and soon children began to scamper away to their own classes. Adonis stayed long after his last peer, but he too left as he realized that the ship would continue to stand dormant.  
He placed his headphones over his ears, shoved open the heavy door leading from the hangar to the school, and did his best to forget about the foretold emergency call. It had probably been a joke anyway.  
It was hard to pass it off as a joke, however, when the sound of a ship taking off penetrated his music. The formerly nonchalant 16 year old didn't even bother gracefully taking off his headphones, instead he shook them off his head and raced into the hangar.  
He hardly caught a glance through the open hangar roof, but it clearly was there. The ship had taken off, vertically, its thrusters blasting purple flames into the air.  
So it hadn't been a joke.  
He grinned, thinking about all the pilots who had just seen their teacher booking it away from the classroom like a cat running from a vacuum cleaner. The pilots had always been immature. They were probably ditching school already.  
Adonis yawned and stretched his arms as several streams of kids wearing pilot's helmets ran in. Nothing in this school was ever boring, was it?


	2. Chapter One

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” questioned Skye Larson, their eyes flicking nervously behind them in the dark corridor they crouched in.  
“For the last time, yes.” Cobalt Myha grumbled quietly, her impatience showing in her voice. She tensed for a moment, then ducked around a corner, flattening herself against the wall. Skye followed, though with many times more hesitation   
Before the two 15 year olds stretched a long corridor that was stained blacker than the midnight sky. At the end stood a door, only a slightly lighter shade than the walls that surrounded it.  
“You can get in there, right?” Cobalt asked, though they had asked the same question many times before.  
“Yes,” Skye answered simply, their voice hardly even audible.  
“Then unlock it,”  
The nonbinary teenager gave a single, curt nod and, with their back still pressed against the wall, as if they might die from parting with it, made their way to the door. They took a deep breath and stepped out into the middle of the corridor with one graceful movement  
The door beeped in acknowledgment. A red light next to the door handle slowly dimmed, before popping back up, now a bright green in color.  
“We're in,”  
Cobalt let go of the breath she didn't realize she had been holding and walked forward, putting their weight on the handle. With a little noise of protest from the hinges, she managed to push it aside.  
The room the two had unveiled was just as dark as the corridor leading up to it. Skye waited until the door slowly clicked closed, then turned on the light.  
They stood at the entrance of a giant kitchen, whose walls were lined with counters, ovens, sinks, dishwashers, microwaves, and everything else imaginable. Cobalt grinned devilishly and, at once, dashed over to a refrigerator, gingerly taking out a rectangular box with an image of a cupcake pristinely printed on top. She set it on one of many counter-tops, and slowly opened the top.  
Inside were three dozen cupcakes, with no frosting on any of them. Skye tip-toed over, holding a large squirt bottle of mustard.  
In less than two minutes, every single one of the cupcakes was covered in “yellow frosting.”  
“Tommorow's lecture is going to be a blast,” Skye chuckled.  
“It will be if one of the weapon's experts gets mad,” Cobalt joked.  
The two froze as a click echoed throughout the building. Cobalt hurriedly stuffed the cupcake box back in the fridge. The door slowly opened, and the two teens held their breath.  
It was only half open when Skye got scared and ran. Their friend soon followed, and the two had dashed out the back door by the time the front one had opened.  
Skye led the way, as they knew the layout of the building better, as any experienced prankster would. The two dashed through the hallways and into the dorm wing of the building. They bounded up a flight of stairs, and Skye hurriedly flashed their hand in front of a scanner. The door slid open at an agonzizingly slow pace, but, after what must have been at least a minute, the two teenagers were able to rush in, the door hurriedly closing shut behind them.  
They were greeted by a chorus of soft barks and yips. Skye held out her hand, and the noises halted at once.  
“Good boy, Swanson!” they whispered. At their feet, bouncing up and down in excitement, was a shiba inu, white as fresh snow.  
Cobalt didn't seem to fond of the animal, and directed her friend's attention using her voice, “So, can I crash here for the night?”  
“Dunno, you aren't in my sector. Is it okay with your sector's director?”  
“I don't think he really cares,”  
“Well, then, sure! Also, don't worry. Swanson sleeps with me. But the entire dorm is covered in dog hair.”  
“Wonderful.”


	3. Chapter Two

[/241.29.7.10 #234] has joined the chat-room “General”   
[/241.29.7.10 #234] has changed name to "Pip”  
SERVER: Greetings, Pip! There are 0 other persons online.  
[/241.29.7.10 #382] has joined the chat-room “General”  
[/241.29.7.10 #382] has changed name to “Elliot”  
SERVER: Greetings, Elliot! There are 1 other persons online.  
Pip: Elliot.  
ELLIOT: Pip.  
Pip: Mind telling me why you brought me here? You know very well I don't like using these chats  
ELLIOT: !channelswitch 3  
User ELLIOT has switched to chat-room “Secure”  
Pip: !channelswitch 3  
User Pip has switched to chat-room “Secure”  
ELLIOT: Of course. You are the scientist that originated the story about the emergency call, correct?  
Pip: Mhm  
ELLIOT: Good. Where exactly did you find the information?  
Pip: The proffesers aren't very good at securing their data streams. I managed to get into one of them by mimicking Mrs.Woodard's computer signature. I have the virtual machine monitoring it running on my phone at all times, so I was watching it when I saw the alert go through  
ELLIOT: And it said the exact words you stated?  
Pip: Yea  
ELLIOT: And does that data stream say anything about why the ship has not yet returned?  
Pip: It has landed. Just north of the GOM  
ELLIOT: Please clarify the meaning of that acronym.  
Pip: GOM = Gulf of Mexico  
ELLIOT: And when will it return?  
Pip: Doesn’t say  
ELLIOT: Thank you for your time  
[/241.29.7.10 #456] has joined the chat-room “General.”  
SERVER: Nickname advisable.  
[/241.29.7.10 #456]: !channelswitch 3  
[/241.29.7.10 #456] has switched to chat-room “Secure”  
ELLIOT: !chatsave PC/Desktop/chat.zip/chat.txt  
ELLOT: !chatclear  
SERVER: Please enter access code.  
ELLIOT: !chatclear 898726  
SERVER: Chat cleared.  
SERVER: User ELLIOT has left the chat.  
SERVER: User Pip has left the chat.  
[/241.29.7.10 #456]: !chatsave PC/Desktop/chat.txt  
SERVER: No chat to save.  
[/241.29.7.10 #456] has changed name to “Caden”  
CADEN: Pip please stop hacking into everything humanely possible.  
[/241.29.7.10 #234] has joined the chat-room “General”   
[/241.29.7.10 #234] has changed name to "Pip”  
SERVER: Greetings Pip! There is 1 other persons online.  
Pip: !chatswitch 3  
User Pip has joined chat-room “Secure.”  
Pip: Unrealistic. Blocked.


	4. Chapter Three

“With the first bacterial life being found on Trypso 74J, the demand for Locheitrium increased, as more and more space exploration startups were finding its use as a chemical reactant with Askyx to be used as a fuel source for their vessels. This resource was readily available within the stomach lining of the newly discovered bacterial life, christened Cloud Wasps for their pale, striped bodies, however....”  
Cobalt found that she was practically falling asleep as the lecture carried on. The students around her seemed to have majorly the same reaction, save for the few intergalactic history majors, who were scribbling down every single word as if they were competing for the “Fastest writer in the world” title. Skye, on the other side of the lecture hall, was already unconscious, their head resting on a pile of books belonging to the teenager sitting next to them. Swanson, donning a red vest with the words “Emotion Support Animal” written across it in black text, was asleep on their lap, tongue lolling. Cobalt would be asleep, had it not been for the red-headed girl next to her, who had pulled out a damn laptop in the middle of the lecture and was typing furiously on it. She looked completely insane, for she was typing madly at random moments, and then staring at white text on her otherwise black screen.  
Goddamn computer science majors.  
Cobalt turned her attention to the clock behind her, which was slowly ticking down the remaining minutes until the lecture was over. Two minutes to go, and the room was getting antsy. Swanson had awoken and was lazily pawing at Skye's leg.  
The teenager woke up, gazed at the clock through half open eyes, then sat bolt upright. They glanced at Cobalt with a knowing look, and, right as the synthetic, robotic bell sounded, they announced:  
“Happy birthday Mr. Kodyn!”  
The lecturer turned all attention to them. Cobalt hurriedly rustled through her backpack, pulling out a slightly crumpled box of cupcakes. She stood up with the box and, as she was sitting right next to the stairs, didn't have to get past any other students to get into the aisle. With the crowd of 500 staring at her, she descended the steps.  
Mr.Kodyn, a younger man with shaggy black hair and bags under his eyes, seemed suspicous of the treat, but never the less excited to receive it. He took the box without hesitation, quickly thanked Cobalt, and placed it on his desk. With a curt nod she turned around, winked at Skye, and left the lecture hall. She could feel Swanson's hot breath on her legs as she walked, signaling her that Skye was right behind.  
As they exited the room, the last thing they heard was a very masculine yelp.   
The cupcake frosting was made of mustard after all.


	5. Chapter Four

[/241.29.7.10 #234] has joined the chat-room “General”   
[/241.29.7.10 #234] has changed name to "Pip”  
SERVER: Greetings, Pip! There are 0 other persons online.  
SERVER: User Pip has uploaded file 'datastream0045.txt' please enter access command to view.  
[/241.29.7.10 #382] has joined the chat-room “General”   
[/241.29.7.10 #382] has changed name to "Elliot”  
SERVER: Greetings, Elliot! There are 1 other persons online.  
ELLIOT: !345569  
SERVER: File sending to user Elliot....  
SERVER: File sent. Redact?  
PIP: !non  
SERVER: File redaction canceled.  
[/241.29.7.10 #567] has joined the chat-room “General”   
[/241.29.7.10 #567] has changed name to "???”  
???: !87654  
SERVER: File sending to user ???....  
SERVER: File sent. Redact?  
PIP: !oui  
SERVER: File redacted.  
PIP: !channelswitch 5  
User PIP has switched to chat-room “Locked”  
SERVER: User PIP enter passcode to access chatroom.  
PIP: !whatisapassword  
SERVER: Access granted.  
User ??? has switched to chat-room “Locked”  
SERVER: User ??? enter passcode to access chatroom.  
User ELLIOT has switched to chat-room “Locked”  
???: !whatisapassword   
SERVER: Access granted.  
SERVER: User ELLIOT enter passcode to access chatroom.  
ELLIOT: !whatisapassword  
SERVER: Access granted.  
PIP: Everyone read the data?  
???: Sounds like nonsense.  
ELLIOT: Agreed.  
PIP: In summary, our ship is being used as a transport vessel for an unknown object, listed as “84759”  
ELLIOT: Any indication into the identity of said object?  
PIP: Nope.  
ELLIOT: Any indication into if this object is the same object from before?  
PIP: Dunno. No flight path records. It's possible, but no concrete evidence.  
ELLIOT: So, our ship is gone?  
PIP: Uhhhhh  
PIP: Yeah pretty much  
PIP: Probs irradiated as hell  
???: Dosen't the data stream say, like, everything?  
PIP: ….  
PIP: Well, funny story.  
PIP: They kinda saw an intruder in the data stream and banned me  
PIP: so.....  
PIP: I don't know more than what I sent  
ELLIOT: That ship has three of our teachers on it.  
???: You aren't wrong.  
PIP: Well, if you're suggesting a rescue mission, news flash  
PIP: We don't have a ship.  
PIP: And none of us can fly a ship anyway  
???: The pilots have a private hanger  
???: Three retired vessels in there  
PIP: As previously stated, none of us are pilots  
???: One moment please  
[/241.29.7.10 #909] has joined the chat-room “General”  
[/241.29.7.10 #234] has changed name to “Skye”  
SERVER: Welcome Skye! There are 3 other persons online.  
SKYE: !channelswitch 5  
User SKYE has switched to chat-room “Locked”  
SKYE !whatisapassword  
SERVER: Access granted.  
???: Skye, hey.  
SKYE: Yes, hello?  
???: You can get into the pilot's hangar right  
SKYE: Yeah?  
SKYE: What of it?  
PIP: Um.... so  
PIP: The vessel in the main hangar is royally f#$*@#  
PIP: They're using it to transport some weird thing???  
PIP: Idk  
SKYE: Uh... so how does this involve me exactly?  
???: …  
???: We want you to fly a ship to find out whats going on  
SKYE: That's ridiculous!  
SKYE: We'd all be expelled!  
???: Aliens could be involved.  
SKYE: I'm in.  
ELLIOT: Next Friday. 2:00 AM. Meet at the hangar door.  
ADONIS: !chatsave PC/Desktop/chat.txt


	6. Chapter Five

Adonis stared down at the paper in his hand, reading it over for what must have been the eighteenth time, at least. As his footsteps paced quietly outside the pilot hangar door, he dared a glance at the digital clock in the wall behind him.  
1:56 AM  
He had never been the loud type of kid, for he had never wanted to be. Putting yourself out there, it made you a threat. A threat to the kids whispering secrets in the hallways after hours. Being quiet, however, it was almost like you weren't there in the eyes of your peers. He could hear any conversation he wished, and no one would care. He was just the quiet kid, sitting in the back corner of the lecture hall, sitting alone in the cafeteria, working on homework silently in study hall.  
So what if he saw a conversation whispered in chat-room. So what if he watched the teens taking part in a dangerous plan.  
Braving another look, Adonis checked the time.  
1:59 AM  
Footsteps.  
The 16 year old flattened his back against the wall. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and pants of the same color, he barely stood out.  
The first thing he saw was a snout, white as winter's snow. Then a bright red vest with unreadable black writing across it. And then the whole dog, a stout shiba with a tail perked up in excitement. Behind it came it's owner, barely managing to hold onto the leash keeping their pet from sprinting away. The owner had brown hair, which went upwards from their neck and peaked above their head. They appeared female, and wore aviator goggles right above their bright jade eyes.   
Trailing them was a far taller girl with a much more muscled build. Her blue hair was tied up in a long ponytail that hung down to her shoulders. At her heels were one boy and one girl, standing shoulder to shoulder as they walked. The female was of average height, her red hair, dyed with black roots, swept up in a pixie cut, and her ears artificially pointed so that she looked almost like an elf. She wore a long sweater that hung down to her knees, as well as navy blue leggings. The male was incredibly tall for his age, standing at around 6 feet. He had a short black mullet that was most likely created using extremely excessive amounts of hair gel, and wore a black compression shirt and pants, covered by a red blazer that was just slightly too big.  
Not a single one of them seemed to notice Adonis, well, at least of the humans did. As soon as the canine leading the group walked past him, it stopped, raising its snout to sniff the air.  
Adonis was obviously no master at masking his scent, so the sensitive nose of the animal picked up his presence in seconds. It pivoted, stepped in his direction, and made a slightly alarmed boof. In the silence of the hallway, it sounded like a bomb had gone off. The group of teenagers immediately turned their gazes on him, though they looked more confused then angry.  
He shook his messy, black, hair and stepped out from his place against the wall. Being of average height, the shorter people were looking up at him, while he was looking up at the taller people.  
Unknowing of what else to say, he stuck out a hand and whispered, “2:00 AM. Meet at hangar door.”  
“Adonis?” the short red-headed girl questioned, not accepting the handshake he was offering.  
He nodded. The group all glanced at one another, then the tall blue-haired girl spoke up,  
“Come along then.”


	7. Chapter Six

The ship was non-operational.  
The group of five had climbed into the ship only made for three crew members, at most, and squeezed into what available space they had. Pip had assisted Skye on equipping the pilot's helmet, a clunky headpiece that allowed the pilot to use cranial functions to fly.  
Skye had revved up the machine, turned on her helmet, and began to move it forwards. Or, at least she attempted to do so. After several minutes of waiting, Swanson began to get anxious, as did the rest of the crew. Pip manually turned off the helmet and removed it after about seven minutes.  
The pilot was still for several moments, as pilots tended to be after their connection to spacecraft was severed.  
The first thing she said upon conciousness was, “Ship's been sabatoged. Thing won't fly without some serious work.”  
Cobalt raised her head in disgust, “Sabotage? How do you know?”  
“No one without the passcode is able to use our private server. I only gave you guys the passcodes. You didn't tell anyone, right?” Pip responded.  
The blue-haired girl visibly bristled at this, which Pip mimicked,  
“Shut up, no one asked you. Skye, how do you know it was sabotage,”  
“Unless the wires in the main hull pulled themselves out of their outputs, it was sabotage,”  
“Does this not mean that we're in huge trouble,” Elliot piped up.  
“It dosen't if we're fast enough. Every experienced prankster knows that!” Skye answered, undetered by Cobalt's previous outburst.  
“Then let's go. We shouldn't have been sneaking around the hangar at these ungodly hours anyways,” Elliot concluded. Everyone, including Adonis, nodded in agreement. As the ship had lifting doors on either side, everyone managed to get out without much fuss.  
It wasn't the first time Swanson, a blind dog who was somehow more observant than his sighted owner, had to lead Skye and her friends out of a mess they had gotten themselves into. With the cybernetic implants in his temporal lobe he was able to find his way around the whole building, for he had a map of it available in his memory.  
With the dog at the lead, the group crept out of the pilot's hangar with relative silence.  
Adonis looked up at the corner of the dark room. A red lens hung there, watching like a bat's eye.  
It was in that moment that he realized, they weren't alone.


	8. Chapter Seven

After that, life seemingly went back to normal. Well, that is what it would seem to everyone who wasn't Adonis. But the young engineer was quite hair triggery, and any small change would set him off.  
However, this wasn't one small change as it was a series of them. What he noticed goes as follows:   
1\. Skye and Cobalt never again attended the same lecture because of scheduling conflicts.  
2\. Pip's computer was detrimentally damaged in a circuit fire, and they were stuck with a school-granted laptop that struggled with running notepad.  
3\. Elliot got moved to a group dorm. The other two in the dorm were notorious trouble-makers and, to a higher degree, snitches.  
Though small things that, in the eyes of most, would appear to be no more slight inconveniences, to Adonis they all looked like pieces of a puzzle.  
He knew that he had seen a security camera in the hangar. That was no delusion. When the pieces were all put together, it looked as if the school was trying to separate the group, though the hardly knew each other.  
They all appeared to be best friends, but, in reality, Elliot had met Pip only two days before the incident at a bathroom sink, and had had a total of three conversations with them since. Skye and Cobalt were the only two who really knew each other, after getting detention for coincidentally similar pranks. Cobalt had only been in the chatroom by chance when Elliot was talking to Pip, and, since everyone knew of her escapades, they had no problem with her joining in on their plans. In fact, she was the only reason that they had been able to put the thing into action, as she had contact with a trained pilot.  
Whatever that camera had seen had clearly incriminated the bunch, but, they were surprising mild with the punishment.  
If anyone knew anything about AFIE, it was that they were never mild about punishment. The whole thing was so suspicous to him that, the next time he saw Elliot, he questioned him on the subject.  
Elliot, being a man of few words, only responded with: “They look at us and grin. They know, and they know that we know that.”  
Adonis didn't question him further, but he payed extra close attention to Pip, Cobalt, Elliot, and Skye whenever he saw them.  
Elliot had spoken the truth. The teachers were grinning at them, like a predator to prey.


	9. Intermission

Ace Landn had never imagined that there was a more boring job then printing paperwork.  
Turns out, there was, and it was what he was now stuck doing:  
Filling out paperwork.  
He was so mindlessly working away with pen and paper that he hardly noticed when his headset beeped. It took him only a few seconds to react, but the headset was already growing agitated, sending him a serious of progressively louder beeps that only stopped when he flipped the translucent lime screen over his right eye.  
His hand was relieved to have a rest from inccesently writing for hours, as his focus switched to the screen in front of his right eye.  
It was clearly a chatroom of some sort, though not the text-based kind that juveniles so often used. Though it would appear strange to most at first, the chat was comprised of several images of eyes, including Ace's, which were a dull hazel color.  
There was only one voice speaking in the chat at first, it was monotone, robotic. Clearly being spoken from a computer, and not a human,  
“Meeting log 86, start. State your name, first and last,”  
“Aice Tobs,” a man responded.  
“Dnise Nayea,”  
“Darwon Grald,”  
“Ace Landn,”  
“Good. Everyone is present, and aware I assume. We are here to discuss a recent incident regarding our academy, and our mission. A chat was recorded of multiple students, one of which had managed to make their way into unsecured teacher data streams and find out where the ship was going. Curious little buggers decided to try to find the ship themselves by using one of the practice ships reserved for pilots. Luckily, the ships were off at the time, and they simply went back to their dorms,”  
“Sir, you plan on culling them, sir?” spoke Darwon.  
“No, no. Killing off a mere child is the worst we can do for our public image. But I assure you, they will die, silently. Until then, keep an eye on the kids.”  
“Their names, sir?”  
“Pip Asket, Skye Caze, Cobalt Leski, Elliot Soren, Caden Solmon, and Karen Akyra. Do all you can to keep them apart, and keep them in the dark. Aice, get rid of Ms.Asket's computer.”

·····················································································································································

[/241.29.7.10 #539] has joined the chat-room “Admin”   
[/241.29.7.10 #539] has changed name to "!admin!”  
SERVER: Admin, greetings to you. Control panel activate?  
ADMIN: !activate  
SERVER: Successful.  
ADMIN: !channelclose 1  
SERVER: Successful.   
ADMIN: !channelclose 2  
SERVER: Successful.  
ADMIN: !channelclose 3  
SERVER: Successful.  
ADMIN: !channelclose 4  
SERVER: Successful.  
ADMIN: !channelclose 5  
SERVER: Successful.  
ADMIN !channelclose 2c17c6393771ee3048ae34d6b380c5ec  
SERVER: All private channels closed.  
ADMIN: !pm  
SERVER: To whom?  
ADMIN !pm c2a04c497fedb94e64d01fce2ae146c6  
SERVER: Message?  
ADMIN: Do not depart.  
[/241.29.7.10 #456] has joined the chat-room “Admin.”  
[/241.29.7.10 #456] has changed name to !beta!  
SERVER: Greetings Beta. Admin is online.  
BETA: They are leaving. The most we can do for them is join.  
ADMIN: You know as well as I do that neither of us are pilots.  
BETA: We don't need to be. But one of us is a commander, and god knows they need one.  
ADMIN: And a medic?  
BETA: And a medic.  
ADMIN: I love you honey.  
BETA: I love you too, sweetheart.  
ADMIN: I'll see you on the ship.  
BETA: If we make it.  
ADMIN: !channeldelete Admin  
SERVER: Successful.


	10. Chapter Seven

Pip absolutely despised living in a shared dorm.  
The science wing of the building was always the most packed, for science was a broad term when it came to astronomy. Apparently, the school had not accounted for this upon building the wing, however.  
Most students would have one or two roommates, and that was decently tolerable.  
Pip had eight roomates. The dorm had four bedrooms and four single beds. However, it just so happened that four out of eight roomates were absolute divas (god knows how they got into the academy) and demanded their own beds. The other four, this included Pip, weren't about to challenge four girls wearing a multitude of sharp jewelery, so, they simply lived with it and slept on the floor.  
This was why Pip was exstatic when they were notified of the space mission that they had been selected for. While scrolling through their drawling school email account, one email stood out, which had been sent only minutes prior to reading. It read,  
Subject: Dear Pip Asket...  
From: @apollo  
Dear Pip Asket, you have been selected as one of the five students to live on, pilot, and explore using a newly certified vessel known as the Laika. As the contract you signed upon school entry, you are obliged to complete this assignment. You will be off-planet for approximently 5 months and stocked with food for 6, in case any accidents do occur. You will be using new light-speed capabilities to collect samples from newly discovered planets.  
Visit the office at 6:00 AM sharp tomorrow for departure.  
Sincerly,  
The Apollo Institute for the Future of Interplanetary Studies and Exploration  
After considering the slight possibility of a hack, they looked into the school's online profile. Sure enough, all profiles listed existence of a new space vessel with the name Laika, to be piloted for 5 months on a resource-collecting mission.  
It was hard for Pip to contain their excitement on the last day they would be on earth for months. They began thinking of all kinds of things, all while assuming a strange position, with their arms behind their head as they layed on the ground, knees tucked up to their chest. As it was only around five in the morning when they had received the email, it wasn't until around six in the morning when one of her more benign roommates woke her back up. Pip profusely thanked her and hurried to class, though she truly could care less about whatever they were going to be learning about in Planetary Zoology.

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Adonis was not trusting. Anyone who had spent any more than five seconds in his prescense knew this very well.  
So, when he received an email from the school's higher-ups, he was immediately suspicous. Everyone knew that only fourth-years were sent on missions, and they were never dangerous. Adonis was a first-year. There must have been some mistake. He even called the school's office, which was pretty much forbidden unless you or another student was literally on the verge of death, but even they had confirmed the fact that he was to be on the mission.  
Either they believed he was an incredibly skilled engineer, far above his grade level, or they were sending him on a suicide mission to get rid of him. And something was telling him that it was the latter.


	11. Chapter Eight

[5:10 AM, The Day of Departure, Pilot's Dorms]  
Skye had no idea what she was thinking, believing she could pack in less than an hour, but she was determined to do it. Because of her canine service companion, she got a dorm to herself, a luxury that her partner in pranking didn't posses.  
She was getting distracted. She needed to pack for five months, for both her and Swanson, in about forty minutes.  
The pilot had no list, a suitcase, and a dog that followed her constantly, even when she was doing no more than walking from one side of her dorm to the other.  
Eventually, after locking the adorable, yet admittedly muddling, canine in his crate, she managed to finish packing, just in time. With her suitcase trailing behind her, she released Swanson from his crate, hooked his leash to his harness, and set off down the hallway.  
The pilot's quarters were much more silent these days than they used to be, she noticed. The particular wing had a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, but even since their director disapeared, everyone had been relatively silent. At this time of day, though classes wouldn't have started, teens would normally be chatting in the hallways, eating breakfast together, and, of course, having wrestling matches.  
Now, the light blue hallway was completely deserted. It was almost eerie. Ignoring it, she reeled the white japenese dog leading her to her side, and climbed into the elevator. The elevators in the schol were far from traditional metal boxes with cables attached, instead they were long tubes with circular platforms in the center. She remembered hearing from an engineering major that the platform used electromagnets to move up and down, but that wasn't too important to her. She didn't care how things worked, just that they did work, and would get her where she was going.

[5:30 AM, The Day of Departure, Communications Wing]  
Elliot had never truly liked the communications area of the building. It was old, shabby, and he wasn't sure if it was possible to count exactly how many drug deals went on there every day. Even so, even if he hated the place, even if he hated his dormmates, the thing he hated most was flying.  
It was almost an oximoron, someone at a space exploration academy, afraid of flying, but it was true. Even just a plane flight was a nightmare for the teenager. He was never supposed to be off planet. Most of those in the communications department weren't. His training dictated that he was to be stationed at headquarters, remotely helping those in space.  
Now, he was racing down the hallways of the building in order to get to the school's office, and subsequently get on a spaceship. The teenager stuck his hand in his pocket, where he kept the thing most important to him.  
He couldn't say that he was exempt from all of the drug deals in the wing. He tried to justify himself, saying that it was alright, it wasn't like he was using heroin or anything, which was far from a lie. But, still, this didn't excuse him from having a plastic bag of xanax pills. He knew he would be needing them on the flight.  
With a gulp of hesitation, the teenager climbed into the electromagnetic elevator, shifting the light backpack he wore that contained his measly amount of possesions.  
Making sure no one was looking, as he walked out of the elevator, he took a pill from his pocket and swallowed it with a sigh of relief.  
This was going to be a long night.

[5:40 AM, The Day of Departure, Operations Wing]  
Cobalt stepped back with a grunt as the next blow came at her face. Steadying her balance, she took the brief oppurtunity in which her opponent was distracted to hit them in the side with a roundhouse kick, forcing their body to lean to the right.  
They recovered quickly and, moving lowly, protecting their vulnerable torso, hit her with a flying elbow. It may have knocked her off balance for a moment, but her challenger waited far too long before running off, long enough for her to put them in a headlock.  
With a cry of victory, she quickly dropped them to the ground, placing her foot upon their back.  
“I told you I would win,” she boasted, raising her chin with pride.  
The boy beneath her stiffled a laugh as she allowed him to stand up.  
“Well, when you come back, I'll surely be a better fighter than you!”  
“I'm sure you will, little bro. But I gotta go now. They won't take kindly to me being late. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, alright? I'll ask the geeks about establishing a link between our ship and your computer,”  
The stout boy, now on his feet, lit up at this, then became sullen once more as he saw her throwing her backpack on her shoulders.  
“When you come back, we'll fight! And this time I'll win!”  
“Of course, Carson. I'll see you in five months,” the blue-haired girl said as she walked out of the dorm, hearing the door slide shut behind her, “I'm so sorry lil bro,”


	12. Intermission Two

[6:00 AM, The Day of Departure, Hangar]  
The ship loomed, ominous, in the relatively small hangar. Designed very simply, the ship had a smooth, curved back, two wings, which were folded down the middle, and thrusters in the back. All in all, it was two hundred feet long, and about sixty feet tall. Huge, to most people, but in terms of spaceships, miniscule.  
Still, the small vessel towered over the two figures standing next to it, their backs pressed to the metal plating. One of them, slightly taller and with a more muscled build than its companion, said something to the other, then parted from the ship's surface, putting themselves in slightly better lighting.  
Though his features were blurry, it was clear that it was a male, for his face was built in such a masculine way. His black hair was short, fluffed up on the back and thinning into sideburns on his temples. He was covered in tiny, dull pink pimples, and his skin was slightly tan. Judging by his height, he was about seventeen or eighteen.  
The teenager looked around for a moment, then seemed to find what he was looking for:  
A door in the back of the ship.  
His companion gave a thumbs-up gesture and followed him, putting herself in the miniscule light of the hangar. Her skin was noticeably pale, almost to a degree that most would have mistaken her as an albino, and she was impossibly thin. Her black hair was long and straight, as if she were a mermaid. The girl was of average height, and looked about the same age as her friend.  
With the boy at the lead, and the girl following close behind, the two creeped over to the back door of the ship. The girl gave a curt nod and took something out of her pocket that appeared to be an oddly colored key.  
Placing it into the ship's lock, which was obviously closed off by more paneling when the ship was in flight, she fiddled with it for a moment before getting the door open. It creaked as she gently pushed it inwards. The boy entered first, then the girl, closing the door behind them.  
The main door to the hangar opened, with five kids, and one white shiba inu.


	13. Chapter Nine

[6:00 AM, The Day of Departure, School Office]  
The tension in the room was thick enough that it made even mere breathing more difficult. Five kids stood there, along with their dog, listening with a strange mix of worry, suspicion, excitement, and grogginess.  
The principal, along with two other directors, were sitting behind a desk, talking over the rather vague launch. What they said was decently simple: Skye would pilot the ship, Adonis was responsible for any and all repairs, Pip was to anylze any samples collected, Elliot was to report back to headquarters, and Cobalt was to keep the crew safe and collect samples. They also spoke of how a map of their flight path would be included, what to do if an emergency took place, and gave them copious amounts of packets about what planets and other astronomical features they would be encountering. Pip took the liberty of carrying these, and was the only one who seemed even mildly interested.  
Adonis was incredibly suspicuous when, after less than ten minutes of debriefing, they were led to the hangar, all of them subdued by fear. Even Swanson, who was always excited, was startled by the overwhelming smell of gasoline. The shiba may have had the nose of a bloodhound, but a bloodhound could only smell so much.  
The group of five teenagers stayed pressed together, with Pip at the lead. With a gesture of the hand, the principal opened the large door of the ship. Everyone walked in, or, more or less sidled. After a few quick goodbyes between kid and teacher, the door was sealed, and the kids made their way out of the airlock.  
Pip, the only one even remotely excited, broke the silence by throwing down their suitcase. The group jumped, then a smile spread across Cobalt's face.  
“Well, pilot?” she spoke.  
“I'll get on it!” Skye responded, gesturing for Pip to follow her. It was impossible for a pilot to apply their own headgear, after all.  
The two went over to the cockpit at a slow trot, while Adonis and Elliot glanced at each other wearily. Cobalt sensed the awkward tension almost immediately and went over to the cockpit.  
Swanson, as he had been trained, was sitting next to the pilot's chair, tail wagging wearily, as if he didn't know wether to be alarmed or not. Pip was assisting with connecting the headgear to the dashboard while Skye adjusted the helmet so that it was comfortable. This helmet, unlike the one on the other ship, was far more sleek and most likely wouldn't break her neck.  
It was white, with blue markings, and curved closely over her scalp. A black-tinted visor covered her eyes, stopping just above her nose, and a large bump came out of either side of the helmet. These bumps contained all the wires, which were dragging out behind the pilot and to several ports around the cockpit.  
Cobalt hardly understood any of what was going on, and put one rough hand on Skye's shoulder. She visibly jumped at this, leading to Pip letting out a sharp hiss in her direction.  
“I thought there was only one animal on this ship,” the blue-haired girl snorted. Pip shook their head and went back to work. The job had obviously been extensively rehearsed back at the academy, for it took only about ten minutes for the work to be complete. Pip, whose duties extended into the care of the pilot, soon shooed Cobalt away. Though annoyed, she had no more buisness in the cockpit, and obliged.  
She was startled as the ship began to rumble, and Swanson let out a mildly alarmed boof. Though the ship lacked any windows, it was obvious to tell as it began to lift off. The thrusters aimed downwards, hurling purple fire at the battered cement below. In the early days of space flight, every take-off was risky. Truly, it was not that way anymore. With ease, the ship drifted out of the hangar, hovered in the air for a moment, then began a quick movement forwards, as if a plane racing along a runway. With a sudden jolt, the formerly folded wings straitened out to their full length. The rumbling of the ship stopped within a few moments, as the thrusters were only needed to exit the hangar. With the ship picking up speed, only the laws of aerodynamics were needed to keep it aloft.  
Cobalt knew that the pilot and the scientist were going to in the cockpit for a while, as helming a ship was never to be done alone, for an ametuer helmsman that is. She could only wait until her only real friend, Skye, came out of the cockpit, stumbling and barely able to remember where they were. As she had learned in class, on missions it was normally the field agent who was tasked with helping the pilot recover from the taxing process of becoming one with a ship's mainframe. However, as Skye had Swanson, an emotional support dog originally meant for her friend's anxiety, she had no need of her help, as the small japenese hound was surprisingly good at keeping its owner upright.  
Looking around, she saw that Adonis and Elliot had retreated to the bowels of the ship, and she decided to do the same. Shifting her bag on her shoulders, she began to walk the only way there was to walk: forwards. The entire ship, as if a type of railroad apartment, was built surrounding a central hallway that ended in the cockpit. Across from the entrance was what looked to be a mechanics room, but Cobalt wasn't too interested in it. She was truly looking for a place to rest.  
Walking down the hallway, she saw that it wasn't really a hallway, only mascaraded as one. After crossing the first set of walls, it was simply an open space. Most likely for storage and whatever Pip was supposed to do once she finished fussing over Skye. At the end of the room was a staircase, which seemed odd amongst all the advanced tech surrounding it.  
Scoffing, Cobalt spoke out loud, saying, “This is a ship that kids would pool their money to buy!”  
She wasn't wrong either, the ship they were on was something a middle class earthan family would use. It was hardly suited for space travel, but it was working.  
As she traversed up the stairs, she heard the sounds of rustling and closing of drawers. So that's where the others had disappeared to. The hallway in the upper floor was a real hallway, branching off to four rooms, assumably living quarters, and ended in another room, most likely a common room or luncheon.  
Selecting one of the two rooms that didn't have noises coming from it, she pressed her hand against the scanner next to the door, which was only programmed to disallow those on a database of criminals, and watched as the metal panel quickly slid away. As she stepped in, it closed just as quickly.  
The room was surprisingly large, as the rooms on ships go. It was about thirty feet across and twenty wide, with a bed built into the wall. A light in each corner was enough to make the whole room bright as the sun. Completing the bare-as-hell look was an end table in the corner, with a small piece of machinery on it that appeared to be a robotic puppy. Upon dropping her backpack and taking a closer look, Cobalt saw that she was correct. It was a relatively old commercial AI known as Spot, which was about as basic as commercial AIs get. She remembered having one back at her family home. It would make her breakfast every morning, find her older brother's keys, and clean the home. It couldn't even hold a conversation, darn thing.  
Purely for nostalgia's sake, she said, “Spot, clean the floor,”  
At the mention of its name, the robot's oversized eyes lit up and it let out a small yap. With fluid robotic joints, it leaped off the table it had sat on and looked around the room. It yapped once again as it found something to clean, and its tiny tail disappeared into a flurry of metal. When it emerged seconds later, it had turned into a tiny mop. The dog quickly got to work, walking backwards and wagging its tail to clean.  
Though she hated to admit it, the robot made her feel close to home. With a sigh she stopped staring blankly at it and picked up her bag, sitting on the bed.  
As the others must have been doing, she unzipped the bag and quickly began to unpack, placing what meager amount she did bring in the two drawers beneath the bed. Clothes, toiletries, snacks, and, at the very bottom of the bag, a family photo.  
It was an image of her and Carson, in front of their old family house, smiling.  
But there was someone cut out from the picture.


	14. Chapter Ten

“We will arrive on Lunar city Cerulle in approximently five hours,” Skye spoke. Though their voice was familiar, its robotic nature at that moment freaked Pip out a bit. After checking over the wires and mechanics one final time, she assured that the pilot was safe. Once they had landed on the moon she would be able to rest.  
As she walked out of the cockpit, the scientist chirped to Swanson, who was still sitting next to the pilot's seat, just to assure that he was awake. His tail wagged for a breif moment, signifying that, yes, the canine was very much awake. He was in charge of notifying her if anything were to go wrong, and he was intelligent enough to know this very well.  
She waved goodbye to Skye, though she knew the pilot was too wrapped up in cyberspace to see, and left the cockpit. She grabbed her roller bag and began to drag it through the central area of the ship, scouring for a place to put it down. Seeing a stairway at the end of the hall, she quickened her pace to a trot.  
However her curiosity got the best of her as she got nearer to it. Instead of focusing on the stairs, she spied a small button on the side of the stairs. To her, in that moment, it seemed like a good plan to press the mysterious button, and that is exactly what she did.  
The stairs began to creak for a moment before the stairs themselves sunk into the metal beneath them, before the entire ramp shot downwards and tilted, making it now a ramp into a lower level of the ship.  
Dropping her bag in pure childish excitement, she walked down the ramp, careful to put her weight in the heels of her feet, lest she fall forwards.  
The basement was incredibly dark. If it did have any lights, they obviously weren't turned on at the moment. The entire floor was very low, so much so that Cobalt's hair would have brushed the ceiling. Like the floor above it, it was built as a railroad apartment would be, with rooms branching off on either side. The only difference was that, this basement was divided into tiny rooms, each only about five feet across and the same length wide. The walls were more similar to fences than walls, and looked to be made of wood, which was a material unheard of in the modern age. They appeared to be some sort of storage compartments.  
Pip tensed as she heard a noise coming from one of the compartments. Though it was hardly audible, it sounded a lot like someone shushing another.  
With one nervous step, she called out, “Anyone there? Cobalt, is that you?”  
No response.  
She listed for a few more moments, placing one foot behind the other and leaning backwards, but nothing happened. With a shrug, she started off once more down the hallway. The storage compartments were all empty, or so it seemed.  
The scientist was startled as a flashlight beam shone in her face. Quickly looking at the source of the beam, the teenager raced ahead, hardly noticing as the beam flickered off. She skidded to a stop in front of the compartment the beam was emanating from.  
At first, she didn't see anything, until a figure from within the compartment stood up. It was clearly male, and much taller than her. She took an immediate defensive stance, but the man did not seem hostile. In fact, he barely seemed older than her.  
From her first impressions about his intentions, she was slightly confused when he stuck out a hand in greeting.  
“Caden Solmon,” he said in a friendly tone. Pip hesitated, but took his offer, and shook his hand. His grip was incredibly tight, but, as he was of musclular build, she asumed that his was instinctual and not a gesture of hostility.  
Pip nodded is response, introducing herself as “Pip Asket,” While she was still busy wondering where he came from, another figure emerged of similar height, but far lankier build. A female, she soon deduced.  
This female, who introduced herself as “Karen Akyra” was far less intimidating than her friend. For a moment the two groups were too confused to say anything to one another.  
Finally, Caden spoke up with a tone of urgency in his voice, “You are the ones of mission Laika?”  
Pip nodded curtly.  
“You are in grave danger, then. Your pilot, is she buzzed in?”  
She nodded once more.  
“Get her out. This ship is doomed to failure,”  
Karen, who seemed to be fiddling with a phone of some sort, interrupted, “Land on the moon. Then get her out of there. You have only a few hours before fuel runs out. Your food is poisoned. Has anyone eaten?” Her voice was incredibly feminine, and in a strange way, soothing.  
“Everyone is in their rooms, mam.”  
“Oh, you mustn’t address me as such. I go to school with you, in a separate year.”  
Caden was already walking towards the stairs, and Karen gracefully pivoted on one leg to follow. Pip, feeling a bit like a young child, trotted after them. Caden clearly knew the way around the ship as he easily climbed the ramp, waited for the others to follow before pressing the button that turned it back into stairs. At this point, Karen took the lead, walking all the way to the cockpit.  
This did not exactly end well. Swanson, smelling the scents of strangers, immediately adhered to his training and bit Caden in the calf, ripping his teeth through the soft flesh and making the boy stumble to the ground. Karen, unlike most people, wasn't alarmed at this, instead, she grabbed onto the shiba's harness, using the canine's momentum to turn it off course. As its harness tugged at it, its momentum was stopped, and it was yanked to a stand still.  
She gave Pip a look that screamed “what are you waiting for” and the younger female suddenly realized that they had a job to do. With a nod, she hurried over to Skye, then looked out the window.  
“We're in the middle of nowhere! Landing now would have detrimental consequenses!”  
Caden grunted, then said in a serious tone, “How fast can we get to the moon.”  
“About twenty hours,”  
“What speed are we going at?”  
“Um, I think about ten thousand miles per hour,”  
“We won't make it in time. In a few hours, this ship will suffer a circuit failure. It'll kill your pilot,”  
“We can't go any faster. This isn't a military ship,”  
“It is, and it can go far faster. It's a Laika. These things can go half light speed,”  
“We have an ametuer pilot, a faulty ship, and passengers on board! We can't risk such a thing,”  
“This ship is going to lose its pilot and be lost in space until all of you run out of rations and starve! There's no choice,”  
Pip snorted in contempt, but ceased the argument. She scanned the mechanisms on the pilot's helmet for a moment before fiddling with a few, and pulling out one. She hesitantly then walked to the dashboard, and turned a single knob.  
The ship sputtered for a moment as its thrusters turned on, and its pilot safety off. The strain could be seen on Skye's face as the ship sped up. The windshield in the cockpit became a blur, and purple fire could be seen streaking past the wings like streamers.  
“We'll be there in about half an hour.”  
“Will we be welcome on Luna?”  
“You're from Earth, course you will.” Karen spoke in response.  
Pip looked at her for a moment with curiousity, “You're from Earth?”  
Karen giggled, “Duh. We're from the academy. Second years.”  
“If you're my age, then, how do you know that we're in danger?”  
“That dosen't matter. Trust me. Did Adonis make it?”  
“Adonis? I mean, yes, he is on board. What of it?”  
“We need his help to fix this thing. We'll never last on Luna.”  
“We could call for help, from the academy?”  
“From the academy? I mean not to insult, but are you brainless? Of course not! They're the ones that rigged this flying circuit failure!”  
“You mean-”  
“Yes. They sabatoged the ship, yada yada.” Caden grunted, annoyed at being pushed out of the conversation and also at Pip's idiocy.  
“Then, what are you doing here? Come to think of it, you weren't assigned to this vessel,” Pip questioned.  
“We snuck on, duh.”  
“But, why?”  
“To save your asses from dying out here in space.”  
“Now isn't the time for arguments. We've gotta fix this thing. Where's Adonis? I need his help,”  
“Adonis? I don't know. Upstairs, I assume?”  
“Good. Caden, keep an eye on the pilot. Make sure nothing happens to her. If she starts going haywire, buzz her out of the system. Pip, take the dog and go to your quarters.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“We'll never get anywhere with this aggressive thing biting us all the time. Keep it in your quarters. We'll take care of it,”  
With a suddenly angry snort, the scientist grabbed Swanson by the harness and, hunched over, stalked her way to the upper floor. The white dog beside her was quite worried about Skye, and resisted going away from her.  
Pip knew that she were too trusting for her own good, but, in the middle of outer space, she didn't really have any other choice. She saw that Adonis had already carried her bag to a room, a room with the door open, so she walked in. The door instantly shut behind her. The damn sound it made always scared her.  
Swanson, seeing that he had no way of getting out of the room, resolved to slump in the corner with his tail down. Pip had always has a soft spot for animals, and hated seeing the thing so upset. She grabbed her suitcase, put it down on the bed beside her, and unzipped it. She was never really too careful about what she packed, as she didn't really have many belongings, having to share a room with five other teenagers and all. She figured that she might have brought some jerky to cheer the dog up.  
After about ten minutes, and a lot of throwing about of clothes, electronics, and miscelanious cables, she located a small package of ham. Tearing it open, she threw a single slice in the direction of the moping canine.  
Swanson lit up as soon as his nose detected food. He sprung up to his feet, curled tail wagging. He attempted to catch it, but he wasn't truly the fastest animal, and instead accepted the meat slab that had landed on his paw. By the way he scarfed it down, you'd think he hadn't eaten in weeks! As soon as he had finished, he darted to the bed, putting his paws on Pip's knees and barking with excitement.  
With a roll of her eyes, she tossed the rest of the meat to the ground. Skye had brought plenty of food anyway. She always overpacked, at least in Pip's eyes.  
Trying to think about other things than the current situation, she remembered that she had learned in class that earth used to only have one moon. They would be in big trouble if that was still the case. Earth's second moon had been created after the first moon crashed into earth. Hardly anyone lived on Earth anymore because of this. It was unstable and unsafe.  
But, for some strange reason, the academy was still there.


	15. Chapter Eleven

It seemed that Caden and Karen had been correct about when the ship was to land, for, after Pip fell asleep for a short nap, she was rudely awoken by the bounce of a high speed ship landing. Swanson yapped in surprise, for he too had fallen asleep.  
Pip was almost excited about the prospect of being on Luna. She had never left earth before, not even on vacation as most families had. Though, this excitement was mixed with an underlying hint of fear and uncertainty. What was being on another planet like? Was there oxygen? What were the people there like?  
These were the questions that bounced in her head as she mindlessly ascended from her bed and woke up the canine laying in the corner. As if a young child, the animal did not want to awake, but eventually she persuaded him to rise to his feet and follow her into the corridor. The door to one of the rooms was open, most likely belonging to Adonis. The rest were closed, though the noises from within them suggested that everyone was very confused about the sudden landing.  
Pip jumped slightly as one of the doors slid open, a shaken-looking Cobalt behind it. She glanced at Pip, narrowed her eyes slightly, and turned away towards the stairs. It didn't take long for another door, that of Elliot, to open, and for the three teenagers to descend down the stairs. Swanson led the group, as he was eager to see his owner.  
The first thing they saw when they neared the end of the main level's hallway was Adonis, his formerly flat hair sticking out at all angles. Elliot seemed quite worried about this, and rushed forward to see if the boy was alright. Cobalt, however, was more interested in the then spotted Skye, who looked quite disorriented and was leaning on Karen for support.  
Gaze turning to glare, the field agent stuck her hand into the holster she always had around her waist, yanking out a gun on instinct. The weapon was white, with a sky blue muzzle. It resembled the pistols so often used back in the 21st century.  
Caden, who was fiddling with a cluster of wires in the corner, stood to his feet and stormed over, putting himself between the two and signaling for Karen to get away. She nodded and did so, Skye still leaning on her shoulder.  
“No need for violence, now,” he said with a tone far to unconcerned for a man with a gun pointed at his forehead.  
“Who are you,” the blue-haired teen growled, finger drawing worryingly close to the trigger.  
“Why, of course. I haven't introduced myself. I am Caden, and,” gesturing to Karen, “That is my girlfriend Karen. And you are Cobalt.”  
“How do you know my name?”  
“Pip isn't the only hacker around here. How do you think we knew about the mission at all? To summarize, we're second years who are here to save your asses, and right now, we're on Luna. Your engineer and I did our best to fix your doomed-to-fail ship, but failed, and we need to get off of it before it explodes. The explosion is going to happen in approximately forty seconds, so get off the ship right now or you will be burnt to a crisp,”  
Cobalt seemed quite alarmed at this, and put her gun back in its holster. She still didn't trust the teen very much, but the threat of death was plenty to scare her into submission for that moment.  
Pip pressed a few buttons on the wall of the ship and watched with worry as the airlock door slowly slid open. The outside door was already open, and she anxiously gestured for everyone to follow her outside. Cobalt upturned her nose, grunted, and led everyone else out the door. As soon as Skye was outside, Swanson raced over to her with a loud bark, putting his paws on her shaky knees.  
At this point, the pilot was steady enough to stand on her own, and gave the white canine a pat on the head.  
Karen took the lead of the group now that the dog was occupied. Caden was staring at something on his oversized watch when he gave her the signal to stop. He turned around, looking at the ship that was now many yards away from them.  
In less than a second, the vessel disappeared into a plume of black, foul smelling smoke. Though the group was far away enough not to be affected, they all still began to cough from the smoke, including an alarmed Swanson.  
However, the smoke began to disappear soon after the blast. Luna was well known for its strong upwards wind currents, after all.  
“Told you the thing was gonna blow,” Caden grunted.  
“Well, what now?” Elliot responded, “Our stuff was on that ship! Our food dumbass!”  
“Food was poisioned. Worthless. Luna is a good place. We'll be able to find something to eat,”  
“So, that's our plan! Just stay on some random planet till we die!” Cobalt interjected.  
“Of course not! Our plan is to get a ship and get back to earth.”  
“Hmph”  
“Then let's do it before someone comes to investigate the wreckage over here,” Adonis spoke, fussing with his spiked-up hair, “From what I've heard, the police here aren't the nicest,”  
Caden gave a curt nod and began walking at the head of the closely-packed group. They had landed in an area of flat land, mostly a culmination of rock and dirt. The ground looked to be a patchwork of the grey and brown substances.  
However, their presence in the wilderness didn't last for long, and the group soon came upon civilization in the form of a rather large city. This city consisted of multiple towering buildings, including a single skyscraper. Their architecture consisted mainly of glass and steel towered into isometric, minimalistic structures.  
Several people wandered the streets, a couple of them riding on the backs of what appeared to be robotic horses. Not a single car nor truck was in sight, leading the group to believe that they were not used in the area.  
Caden looked back at the group, a glint of slight annoyance in his eyes, and began walking down the road that led into the city. Pip found herself huddling close to Skye, as the planet was not exactly hospitable in terms of temperature.  
They gained several strange looks from their outfits, which were standard-issue AFIE uniforms. Everyone else was dressed similar to those of the Antarctic regions of the earth, with fluffy hoods and thick coats.  
Elliot began to ask a question, but Caden quickly cut him off with a hand gesture as he, and subsequently the rest of the group, turned into an alley between two tall office buildings. The narrow area smelled awful, but it was quite a bit warmer than the rest of the place.  
“You even know what you're doing, scumbag?” Cobalt grumbled from the back of the group. Karen sat down with her back pressed against the wall. Albeit reluctantly, the others did the same. Caden stood in front of the group, a scowl plastered to his face.  
“Look. I have some contacts here on Luna. I'm going to go and get us a new ship. You lot, stay here with Karen. And don't go anywhere.”


	16. Intermission Three

A young man sprinted across a rooftop, his features completely obscured by the darkness surrounding him. As he leaped to a lower roof, he dared to glance back at those perusing him. Two other boys, one of them armed with a glowing blue plasma-blade, and the other wielding a lavender-tinted firearm. As the latter of the two fired a glowing bullet in his direction, he landed on the lower roof top, feet on the ground. With his eyes wide, the boy stepped backwards.  
The bullet blew clear through his shoulder, blood spraying in its wake. He let out a yowl of pain as he fell onto his good side. The two assailants looked at each other, nodded, and turned the other way, as their victim bled onto the steel roof upon which he lay.  
Once they had disappeared from the city canopy, the injured slowly, painfully sat up. His left side was entirely soaked with blood, and he was incredibly light-headed, but he still managed to flip the small green panel attached to the headset he wore over his eye. Immediately, half of his vision turned into a view of a computer screen. Simply by thinking about it, he typed out a message to a friend, a simple message stating:  
“I've been hit.”  
That was all he managed to do before passing out.

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The first thin the witnessed upon waking was the face of a young boy. He had a round face and bright blue eyes, with short blond hair sticking out from his head. A smile spread across his countenance and he called, “Sis! He's awake!”  
The injured teen groaned as he heard quick, dainty footsteps enter the room. In a split second, the boys face was replaced with that of a pale skinned girl.  
“You're up. I can't believe you went out alone like that. At night of all times!” she said, her mermaid-like black hair shaking as she did so.  
He mumbled something along the lines of, 'yeah, I know, I'm sorry.' His shoulder hurt like hell, but he still managed to sit up. Through blurry vision, he looked around. He was in a familiar, rather disheveled apartment, with tattered old beige wallpaper and several couches covered in stains that he really didn't want to know the cause of.  
“I bandaged up your shoulder, but you know I don't have any nanobots to help you heal. Stay off the shoulder for a while. You don't need to go on another mission for awhile. I arranged it with Zen. He can do the job for you,”  
“Job? I was on a job?”  
“Oh, hun. Did you fall hurt your head? Of course you were. Delivering Jade,”  
“Oh, oh yeah! I remember now. And, did they take it?”  
“No, strangely enough. But you have no need ti worry about such things. Rest here,”  
“Ugh, Karen, you know I can't. Call Spark and get some nanobots. I've got to be out in the field as soon as possible.”  
“Of course, Caden.”


	17. Chapter Twelve

After Caden left, no one spoke for several hours, except for Swanson, who was whimpering in hunger. Skye scratched his head soothingly, but it didn't help. Everyone in the group was hungry, they were just too prideful to admit it.  
Eventually, Cobalt spoke up, “So, the plan is just to sit here, in silence, until that guy brings back a ship somehow?”  
Karen nodded, “I'm assuming your irritability is due to hunger,”  
“No shit.”  
“Of course. I packed as much food as I could.”  
“Well, why didn't you say sooner?  
Karen just grunted as she removed her backpack and unzipped it. It was filled to the brim with small, wrapped packages that resembled sticks of butter. She took out six, kept one for herself, and placed one in front of everyone else. Cobalt eagerly unwrapped hers.  
The ration looked exactly like butter, but she truly couldn't care less. She took a bite of one, and barely managed to swallow it without gagging.  
The stick tasted like butter as well. It was rank, but, she was hungry, and she hesitantly ate the rest. Everyone else was having a similar reaction, and soon the rations were little more than wrappers on the ground.  
“So, whee did you come from?” Pip questioned. She was obviously trying to lighten the mood.  
“Here, on Luna. Both me and Caden did.”  
“That's cool. I came from Earth. Why did you ever come to earth?”  
“Well, it's a story.”  
“We have nothing better to do.”  
“I think Caden would perfer if I kept it private.”  
“Hmph.”


	18. Intermission Four

A young man holds his girlfriend's hand as the two stalk through a back alley. The man, known as Caden, was still suffering from a wound to the shoulder that was in the process of being healed by modern technolagy. But his injury didn't mean that he had no responsibilities.  
For one of his fellow gang members had been badly hurt in a fight, and there was only one medic in the gang.  
That medic, who just happened to be his girlfriend, was the lifeblood of the gang. Though she was far from being the leader, everyone did whatever she commanded. That was how she had gotten the gang's resident tech nerd over to her shabby apartment so quickly in order to use tiny robots to repair her boyfriend's wound. But, as soon as he left, she was needed on the other side of the city.  
Caden had his saber, a sword that was made of a hyper-flexible, and yet also quite solid metal, wrapped around his palm. Karen normally wouldn't have needed an escort, but, for this particular mission, she would have to cross territory claimed by an enemy gang.  
This is why they were hardly surprised when they were confronted by two boys and a robotic fighter dog.  
Caden motioned for Karen to stand back as he flicked his wrist so that his saber unwrapped itself, becoming what appeared to be an old fashioned sword. One of the boys was unarmed, except for the robotic canine standing by his side. The second teen, however, held a saber of his own, though his was far different. It was made of superheated iron, able to cut through flesh and bone effortlessly.  
With the grunt, the two swordsman began to fight.  
The rival teen, evidently, was not the best fighter. The two clashed swords for a moment, the first boy watching in silence. Caden's sword, however, was far stronger than the heated blade, and managed to slice through it entirely. The teen stepped back in surprise as his blade fell to the ground, and he was left with a handle.  
Seeing his oppurtunity, Caden attacked.  
It was like slicing through butter.  
He didn't realize what he had done until his heard the sickening squish of meat hitting the ground.


	19. Chapter Thirteen

After about ten hours of waiting, Swanson was getting fidgetty, and kept barking. He was clearly tired of sitting for so long.  
“Karen, Swanson needs to go on a walk.” Skye said, with slight hostility in her voice.  
“Caden said to stay here, so we stay here.”  
“Do you really want dog poop in our alley.”  
“Damn it, fine. But be back in five minutes”  
She nodded, stood up, stretched, and led her over excited shiba inu out of the alleyway.  
Picking up the conversation, Elliot asked, “So, what did Caden mean when he said he had some favors?”  
“Look, Caden used to be a bit of a big deal here on Luna. He helped out a lot of people, and those people owe him now. He should be back by tomorrow morning, with a ship. I recommend you sleep. This planet is pretty safe, considering that we're in neutral territory right now.”  
Not questioning the use of phrasing, everyone nodded, and when Skye and Swanson returned, the alleyway was full of asleep teenagers.

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Caden nervously looked around as his old friend, Spark, clambered into the window of a down-trodden bar. With slight hesitation, however, he followed him.  
Though the bar looked old on the outside, on the inside it was quite well maintained. In the lighting, Spark's appearance was fully visible. He wore a bright yellow jacket, and had black hair that stuck up in all directions. Hanging from his ears were tiny earrings in the shape of 3d glasses.  
He led him through a maze of hallways before stopping outside an office door.  
“She's in there.”  
“Sure she can hook me up with a ship?”  
“She never paid you for the Daydream she got from you all those years ago.”  
Caden nodded, thanked Spark, and opened the door.  
For being above a noisy old bar, the office was well kept. It consisted of a single, steel desk, near the back wall, with shelves lining the walls on either side of it. On the desk was a nameplate inscribed with the word “Flux.” Behind the desk sat a girl about two years older than him, with long black hair pulled into a ponytail. She closed her laptop and looked up at him, gesturing for him to take a seat in the chair in front of the desk.  
“Well, greetings again. Caden, correct? It's nice to see you again after all this time. Spark told me that you came here with a request, am I right?”  
“Yes, I come here looking for a ship,”  
“Ship, hm? I've got a spare, but it ain't no high speed battle cruiser.”  
“I don't need one. I just need to get back to earth.”  
“Then shes all yours.” the woman said with a grin that looked almost malevolent.”  
“I appreciate it.”


	20. Chapter Fourteen

“It's been three days since Caden left. Don't you think we should check on him?” Elliot asked, concern in his voice. Everyone else was busy nibbling at their rations that they truly weren't hungry enough to eat.  
“He told us to stay here.” Karen responded, having already finished her food.  
“Yes, but who knows where he is now? Who says he even got a ship? Who says he isn't dead?”  
“I do. He's fine.”  
“I don't care about him. I care about where our ship is. Our supplies are dwindling. We can't just sit here until we all die of starvation.”  
“Fine, then. Go out on your own. I'm staying.”  
Pip lit up at this. She was obviously getting quite bored without all her tech to keep her busy.  
“We will. Come on, everyone,” Elliot grunted, standing up. His legs ached awfully from cramping, but this didn't stop him from walking out of the alleyway. Swanson, Skye, Cobalt, and Pip followed without hesitation. But, Adonis didn't move.   
“I'm staying here. It's far safer than wandering out on some planet you've all never been on.”  
“Pussy,” Cobalt growled as the group filed out of the alley, a dog at their heels.  
Adonis huffed at them as they left, and Karen rolled her eyes.  
As Karen had told them, a single day on Luna last the same as four earth days. Thefor, since it was the third day they'd been on the planet, they left the alleyway just as the two day night was beginning. Still, the city was bathed in light from the many street lamps and buildings littering it.  
Cobalt overtook Elliot at the position of the leader, and began walking along the street they were on. It was almost eerie, with the lack of people outside.  
“Um, do we have a plan?” Skye questioned.  
“Of course we do. We find Caden.”  
“Why look for that asshole when we can just find a ship and get the hell out of here,” Elliot interjected.  
“None of us have ever even been on this planet before. There's no way we could scrounge up a ship.”  
“Fine then, we look for Caden. But do you have anywhere to start.”  
“We find his old gang.”  
“What? Gang? That pimp was in a gang?”  
“Do you know nothing about Luna? Everyone here is in a gang. We've just got to ask around.”  
“Well, we best be careful then, if we're in gang territory.”  
“Hmph. Well, we got not weapons, other than my glock,” she grunted, referring to her gun, “You lot stay behind me.”  
Elliot responded with a simple grunt, and they continued on in silence. That was, until they saw a plume of smoke rising up over the distance.  
“And there we have our lead.” Cobalt grunted, but didn't speed up. Skye, led by Swanson, threaded through the group until they were by Cobalt's side.  
“What do you think it is?” the pilot asked.  
“Ship crash. What else?”  
“You sure it isn't just some housefire?”  
“Housefires don't stay on here for more than a few seconds. Air currents always go upwards here, blows the fire right out.”  
“Mm. And why not with ships?”  
“It does the same thing to ships. But ships can burn for ages. Now shut up, I'm not your proffeser.”  
Skye grunted and drifted back into the group. It was at around this point that the source of the smoke was visible.  
True to Cobalt's prediction, it was a ship. Far smaller than the ship they had flown to the moon in, it was in the shape of a triangle and was very short. Fire was springing from the top, and had burned several holes in its surface.  
Cobalt signaled for everyone else to stop as she went ahead to investigate. Everyone did, albeit Swanson a bit more reluctantly than the others.  
Two people stood next to the ship, both of which were wearing heavy graphene armor and holding large weapons that appeared to be rocket launchers. The blue-haired teen took out her own weapon, holding it in one hand by her side. Though she didn't intent to appear hostile, it seemed that she had caught the people's attention, and now had two pistols aimed at her face.  
Unlike what Pip or Skye would have done, which would be surrender, she aimed her pistol at them. And like that they stayed for several minutes, guns pointed at each other, in a stare down. That was, until one of the people, who she had deduced to be teenage boys, quietly whispered to the other. The other boy nodded and looked back at Cobalt.  
“Affiliation?” He asked in a voice that wasn't that of a young boy, but not that of an adult either.  
Cobalt narrowed her eyes, alligned her gun so that it was level with the boy's forehead, and responded, “None.”  
The boy answered her with a grin, “None, hm? Then what's that gang behind you?”  
“We're looking for a lost friend.”  
“Lost friend, hm? He got a gang?”  
“Don't know about gang, but I can tell you his name.”  
“Then why don't you? I might know 'im, I might not. But it would awfully rude of me to not listen to the question of such a beautiful lady.”  
Cobalt did her best to ignore the pandering insult, “His name's Caden.”  
“Caden, hm? Yeah, I know him. In fact I just shot him out of the sky.” The boy spoke. And it was in that moment that his partner fired. However, he wasn't the best aim, and she managed to jump away before it hit its mark. With an annoyed grunt, the first teenager sliced his arm in front of him, unfurling the nano-blade around his wrist and charging at Cobalt.  
She threw her gun to Elliot, who had moved closer on instinct, and kicked her assailant in the stomach. Elliot fired at the attacker, who took the bullet to the lower leg. He yelped before turning tail and limping away. Without thinking, Cobalt raised her hand for a high five.  
And Elliot slapped her hand.


	21. Intermission Five

“Are you sure the place is still on lockdown?” Caden questioned, feeling Spark's body heat next to his.  
“Yeah, sadly. They'll tell us when it isn't. There's some kind of fight going on out there.” The engineer responded.  
“I should be out there fighting, not in here then!”  
“Did you forget what happened, what you did?.”  
“I sliced their leader in half with a nanoblade, yes, I know.”  
“They'd kill you on sight. We have a fleet. They'll take care of it. All we've got to do is wait.”  
“How do you ever do this, during every fight?”  
“As a techie, well, you just learn to live with it. Besides, I get plenty of excitement during the day. Nice to relax.”  
Caden sighed as he looked around the room he had been stuck in for two days. As soon as the murder had taken place, the base had been attacked by an enemy gang, and Spark and him had been evacuated to a shelter underground. The attack had lasted for two days, and the two had been stuck in the shelter the entire length of it.  
They could only sit and hope that the attack would let up eventually.


	22. Chapter Fifteen

Cobalt heard sirens begin as soon as she approached the downed ship. Instead of seeing the police cars she was so used to, she saw a vehicle that she didn't know what to make heads or tails of.  
It was a white ship, but it was tiny, probably only about fifty feet from nose to tail, with double wings that had thrusters on their ends.  
The giant ship stopped right over the burning mass of metal on the ground. Its thrusters turned downwards and began to shoot flames, helping the vessel hover. A huge hatch, almost as big as the bottom of the ship, opened, and, in a split second, doused the entire scene with a veil of white powder.  
When everyone was finished coughing, they saw that, for one, the fire was out, and for two, the ship had landed and two people had exited it. Both of them were armed in white, with weapons at the ready.  
Now that the fire was gone, they got a clear look at the ship, if you could call it a ship at that point. It had a huge hole on one wing, which was clearly caused by some kind of missle. The emergency workers forced open the door and clambered inside the ship. After a few seconds, Cobalt, followed by everyone except Swanson, who had been tied to a lamppost. Skye insisted that the smoke would be bad for him.) climbed in as well.  
The ceiling was incredibly low, and the hallways were stuffy and sweltering, but the fact that the ship had been on fire moments ago pretty much made that expected. Though they didn't know the way around, they soon made it to the cockpit by following the sounds the emergency workers made as they clambered to the cockpit. Soon they were standing in the doorway of the only non-collapsed room of the vessel while two people tried to see if Caden, sitting limp in the pilot's chair, was still alive.  
He evidently was, as the two people picked him up, one holding his wrists, while the other held his shins. They looked at Cobalt and her group with a huff before heading out of the ship, followed quickly by the teens.  
The workers laid Caden out on his back, so that his limbs were spread apart, and walked back to their ship. Elliot watched with confusion as the vessel took off and flew away.  
“What the heck?” Skye said, “They should be doing something.”  
“Whatever. We better get him back to Karen. She said she's a medic, correct?” Cobalt responded with a huff.  
“Mhm. You carry him?”  
“Yeah. I wasn't expecting you to do any work anyways.”  
Skye grunted in response as the blue-haired girl hoisted the unconcious second-year onto her shoulders and began to walk back to the alley they had left, with a newly freed dog tugging at the leash she held.  
Karen was not happy to see them.  
“So, you're back after an hour. I knew you'd come crawling back after you found nothing. Wait, Caden?” she said with alarm in her voice once the unconcious teen was dropped in front of her.  
“What the hell did you do to him?”  
“Nothing,” Elliot snorted, “We found him in a ship that he managed to get shot out of the sky.”  
“Shot out of the sky? Where was the ship?”  
“I don't know, next to some skyscraper.”  
“You went into gang territory. More importantly, he did too!”  
“Now we need to find another ship.”  
“Go right the f*** ahead.”  
“We will. We'll be back as soon as we can.”  
And, with that strangely polite statement, they headed out again. That was until Pip decided that she was tired about five minutes after they started walking, and they had to bring her back to the alley to rest. After that, however, they headed out for their real objective:  
Getting a ship.


	23. Intermission Six

Skye shifted their backpack as they walked along the dusty expanse of Ebon Street. Dust bit into their eyes and they pulled their hood even further over their face to keep out the bitter cold.  
Mars had never been a hospitable place, with its temperature, and dust storms, but it definently wasn't a hospitable place for Skye, the kid who had run away only a few days prior. The thirteen year old had snuck out in the middle of martain night, and had disappeared from their neighborhood, along with the family dog, Swanson.  
Though it was day, no one else was about.. Ebon Street was rather sleepy after all, seperated from any larger city. Swanson, who was bouncing around next to them with a skip in his step, suddenly stopped, planting his paws to the ground as if not doing so might kill him.  
With a sharp bark, and a point of his snout towards the horizon, Skye realized why.  
About a hundered feet or so in front of them was a large building. Made of wood, stone, and brick, all meshed together, it appeared to be an old-style tavern. Parked next to it were several small ships, designed for only one or two people.  
Swanson yipped as he tugged on his leash. He was a smart dog, and he knew very well that his owner had been searching for a ship to get off the planet. However, he clearly didn't understand the concept of ownership and, well, stealing.  
Still, Skye followed the canine as he led her to a particularly small ship. Only about fifteen feet long, with a wingspan of ten, it was clearly built for one person and one person only.  
The white dog continued his storm of barks and threw his paws on the door. Surprisingly, it opened. He jumped inside and sat on the pilot's seat. After looking around for a breif moment, Skye followed. They signaled for the dog to hop into the small area beneath the seat, which he did, and sat on the seat themselves.  
Skye had never flown a ship before in their life, but they had seen enough television to know how it was done. On the dashboard there was a helmet laying on its side, wires splaying from its surface.  
With a deep sigh, they broke the first and most important rule of piloting.  
Never put a helmet on yourself.


	24. Chapter Sixteen

“So, getting a ship, getting a ship,” Cobalt muttered, “Ideas?”  
“Well, we do have money,” Elliot retorted.  
“On the ship, dumbass. The ship that blew up.”  
“Yeah. Well, the police here are obviously incompetant.”  
“You suggesting we steal one?”  
“Yeah. What of it?”  
“Is that even possible?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Won't it kill the pilot.”  
“Um, no,” Skye piped up from the back of the group, “As long as the ship you steal isn't owned by some hacker.”  
“What? Why? Who cares who owns the damn thing?”  
“A code can be impletemented to scan the brainwaves of the pilot. If the helmet dosen't recognize them, it will slice the brainstem and kill the pilot instantly.”  
“There a way to tell?”  
“If the helmet's got a blade in it, then it's booby trapped.”  
“Hmf. Well, we'll steal a ship then. You even done that before?'  
“Yes. Once.”  
“And how'd that go?”  
“Well, I didn't get caught.”  
“Good enough for me.”  
“Let's find someplace secluded then. Take the ship of some suburban couple.” Elliot responded.  
The conversation wrapped up after that, and everyone continued to walk in silence until they made it to the inner part of the city.  
There were people swarming the streets, some walking, some on the back of robotic horses. Some even had dogs. At first, Swanson, with his lack of sight, didn't notice, but as they neared the group, he burst out in a chorus of yips and yaps. To quiet him, Skye picked him up and help him close to their chest. The canine let out one final bark before resting his head on his owner's shoulder.  
“Think anyone will notice if we swipe a ship from here, Elliot?”  
“Of course you're asking the expert, which is me. And, no. They won't.”  
“Thanks, expert. Skye, you stay at the front. You know what you're doing.”  
The pilot nodded and, still holding their dog, sped up to a trot until they were at the front of the group. Swanson began to kick at them with his hind legs, so they set him down, which made him yap happily.  
“Ship, ship, shippity ship,” they murmered, eyes scanning.  
“Wait. I see something,” Cobalt interrupted, pointing to something behind a rather short building. It was a parking garage of some sort, with what must've been hundereds of ships parked on its many levels.  
“Single person ships. We could never fit seven people in them.” Elliot retorted.  
“Are you blind or something? You don't see that?”  
Elliot squinted, and saw what the blue-haired girl was talking about. There was a rather large vessel parked near the bottom of the garage. It was black, with dark-tinted windows and folded wings.  
“There's our ship.”  
It took about two hours of pushing, shoving, and weaving through people to get to the garage, but, eventually, they somehow managed the feat. The problem was, the only way to get in was through a hole in the top.  
“Well, there goes our perfect ship,” Skye sighed.  
“Says who?” Cobalt snorted in response.  
“Says the person who believes we are space explorers, and not rock climbers.”  
“Well, it's time to stop being a one trick pony then!”  
Elliot took the lead, finding a handhold on an uneven piece of metal and bracing his feet before shoving himself upwards. Cobalt was about to follow, when Skye stopped her.  
“Hey, you're better at this than me. Swanson's harness is designed to be able to strap onto someone's bac-”  
“Just give me the damn dog.”  
Skye was taken aback, but handed over the shiba inu, and watched as their friend attached the squirming animal to their back. The two then began climbing. It's clearly obvious to everyone unoblvious who got to the top quicker.  
Somehow, all three made it to the roof, though it took a lot of sweat and breaks. Then, they were faced with their next challenge.  
The entrance in the ceiling was designed for ships that could hover, not for people.  
“Well, I guess it's time to climb in,” Cobalt spoke, breaking the silence. She peered over the entrance and deduced in less than five seconds that anyone jumping the distance would die on impact.  
“New plan,”  
In less than five minutes, the girl was being lowered to the first floor by Elliot, who was being helped by Skye. Then, after she was on the ground, Skye helped Elliot down. Elliot would then climb onto Cobalt's shoulders and help Skye to the ground. This tower formation was used to descend for around ten floors, until they were on the floor with the strange black vessel.  
Skye investigated first, attempting to open the door.  
Locked.  
“Well, that was for nothing.”  
“You really thing that any respectable communications agent dosen't bring a lock pick everywhere they go?” Elliot responded. He pushed past them and, in about five minutes, opened the door with an ostentatious gesture.  
Skye nodded in thanks and slid into the pilots seat. They picked up the helmet and, to their surprise, saw no blade.  
“We're good. Get in,” they said, pressing a button on the dashboard. A door sprung open on either side of the ship, and the other two climbed in. Much to Swanson's relief, he was then released, and leaped into the cockpit.  
“Destination, the alley.” Cobalt said just before Skye broke the first rule of piloting.  
Never put a helmet on yourself.


	25. Chapter Seventeen

When a ship flew over the alleyway, everyone panicked at once. They had no idea who it could be owned by, but they assumed it was most likely the rival gang. With no place to hide, they simply cowered in the alley.  
So they were incredibly surprised when the ship landed, and a portable elevator, a type of elevator mounted on a rope, descended from a hatch in its bottom.   
With a few shared suspicous glances, Pip and Adonis climbed on, followed by Karen carrying an injured Caden.  
The elevator carried the group to some sort of common room. It was the central area of a ship, with several windows on either side and multiple chairs set up along the walls.  
Cobalt truly didn't acknowledge the newcomers, except with a grunt and a look that said, “Just be grateful I didn't kill you.”  
Karen huffed in response and stormed off. Adonis sunk into a chair, while Pip wandered off into the corridor branching off from the common room. Though he was silent, Elliot followed her.  
The hallway was incredibly narrow, with doors lined up doorframe to doorframe. They all seemed incredibly boring at first. Offices, bathrooms, storage rooms. But, at the end of the hallway, was a black door marked, “NO ENTRY.”  
This, of course made Pip want to enter the room. But, of course, when she tried to open the door, it was locked from the inside. She snorted, and tried again, putting as much force as she humanely could exert onto the handle.  
It took about fifteen minutes for her to give up and go the other way. Well, she hadn't exactly given up. She was just going to find some other way into the room.  
Elliot tried his best with the lock too, but all he accomplished was breaking his lock pick.

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“Skye. Set course for Earth. AFIE Academy.” Cobalt commanded from her spot in the common room. The silent pilot only nodded as the ship left the thin atmosphere of Luna.  
The central room was the most tense place anyone in the crew had ever been. Pip was the only one who seemed even slightly relaxed, and that was because she had a computer. On the other hand, Adonis, Cobalt, Elliot, Caden, and Karen were all simply glaring at one another. At one point it had even broken out into a weird primal growl-off between Karen and Cobalt.  
“So, anyone know anything about that weird growling noise from the last room?” Elliot asked after a while in an attempt to lighten the mood. The effect was the exact opposite, however, as everyone immediately began staring at him.  
Pip was the first to respond, saying in a nonchalant tone, “Yeah. The thing has insane encryption. I've been trying to get into it this whole time. It's a retina scanner of some kind, but getting into the files to add a new retina to scan is incredibly hard.”  
“Wait, growling?” Adonis asked, “Y'know if you really wanted to you could break a hole in the door and deploy a remote camera of some kind. No guarentee that it won't be destroyed in five seconds though.”  
“Won't need to. We're in.” Pip interrupted, with a grin on her face.


	26. Chapter Seventeen

For a whole three minutes, no one glared, growled, or insulted anyone else. The group was in complete silence as Pip led them to the black door, allowed it to scan her eye, and opened the handle.  
Elliot had not been lying about the growling. As soon as they entered, something let out an inhuman series of agitated noises.  
Cobalt overtook Pip at the lead and walked into the room. It was dark, with a low ceiling and many medical tools attached to the walls. Most were nonthreatening, such as stethescopes and thermometers, and some were most definently threatening, such as the scalpel sitting all by its lonesome on an endtable. The most noticeable thing however, was the table in the middle of the room.  
The table with some kind of alein creature laying on it.  
It seemed relatively humanoid, Cobalt saw after closer observation. Though its skin was practiclly bleach white, and its knees were slightly more pronounced than those of a human, it was largely the same. That was, except for the one glaring difference. This creature had spikes of chitin all over its head, making it appear to have hair the same color of its skin. Emerging from these spikes at around the temple area were two horns, thick based and getting thinner as they genty curved towards one another, not touching, but incredibly close.  
Cobalt took her gun from its holster, not aiming it but keeping her finger on the trigger if anything did happen.  
“Do you think it can talk?” Pip questioned.  
“Of course not. It's an alein. Think the thing just came outta the womb speaking english?”  
“Well, we should at least try to communicate somehow.”  
Elliot jumped at this oppurtunity, of course. It was his job.  
“We were taught in class basic communications skills with those who can't speak a common language. That should apply,” he said with sudden excitement no one had seen from him. Everyone stepped out of the way.  
Not a good idea in the slightest. The alein, its narrow green eyes now focused onto Elliot, sat up. Beneath its thin shell it was possible to see muscles moving.  
With a universally understood grunt of anger, it pulled back its lips, revealing two fangs and a mouth full of sharp canines. It stood up, putting more weight on its heels than a normal person would. Pip noticed that it seemed to have more flexible legs, judging by its way of moving forwards with one leg almost completely folded over.  
The creature drew back one clawed arm and slashed at the boy. He jumped back, but the creature's strike didn't connect. Instead it seemed to be blocked by some invisible force. Feeling brave, Cobalt attempted to touch the creature.  
The same force blocked her. There was some kind of invisible dome seperating the creature. Not entirely unlike the invisible fences many earthdwellers used to contain domestic pets. A wall that acted as if it were physical, but wasn't.  
This seemed to tire the alein out, as it stepped out and began breathing heavily. Its lungs were clearly visible as they expanded and contracted.  
“So, what the hell kinda ship did we take?” Cobalt said, alarm in her voice.  
“A ship we should probably not stay on.” Karen responded.  
“Government ship. Something like that,” Elliot answered.  
“I don't care,” Karen said. Caden was still leaning against her, limping slightly, “Let's get out of here. It dosen't seem happy.”  
“Wow. Really? I never noticed.” the blue-haired girl retorted.  
Though it was an argument, everyone was in agreement, and they soon filed out of the room.  
That was, except for Pip.


	27. Chapter Eighteen

Pip never went anywhere without her laptop. Doing such a thing was completely unheard of for her.  
So, when the ship exploded, and she had lost that which was most dear to her, she had not known what to do. Then Cobalt had shown up with a ship, and she had found solace in the hell that had become her current presence on the physical plane:  
A computer.  
Sure, it was slow and clunky, but it was a computer, with an internet connection. However, concentrating was a bit hard when you were surrounded by a group of angry teenagers swearing at one another.  
So, when they had all left, she had decided that the mysterious room with the savage alein was far better than the common room.  
And that was exactly the train of thought that had brought her to where she was now: At least three feet away from the percieved area in which the creature was limited to, she was tapping away on the computer. The humanoid, which seemed to have almost rag doll-esque anatomy (that is to say that, though it was naked, except for a white vest draped over its shoulders, it had no genitals rudely hanging out), had not resolved to lay back down, but rather to pace. It glanced at her every once in a while, flicked its long, lion-like tail (which the group had also not noticed before), then would turn back to pacing.  
After a long session of checking the intergalactic news, and looking up once every few seconds, Pip spoke to the creature, “So, you have a name?”  
Its troll-like ears flicked upwards and it looked at her. After thinking for a moment, it responded with a grunt that could have been something in english, just incredibly butchered. She thought it could have been trying to say its name. She did her best to repeat it,  
“Noyc?”  
It gave a grunt in approval.  
“Well, then, Noyc. Can you speak english?”  
“Noyc czen”  
“Noyc can?”  
It raised its head.  
“Noyc he or she?”  
“Noyc izck boya!”  
“Noyc is a boy, hm?”  
This was the happiest the alein had seemed since, well, since they had met it. Its tail dragged across the ground in a gesture most likely supposed to symolize happiness.  
“Why is Noyc here?”  
“Noyc izck badk.”  
“Noyc is bad?”  
“Yek.”  
“Noyc dosen't seem bad.”  
This seemed to dumbfound him. His grasp on english was clearly very basic. He sat back down on his table and made a noise resembling a sigh.  
On her laptop, Pip had began to write down observations about the alein. Its skin was made up of what looked like white chitin plates, with white skin holding them together. These plates moved as it moved, and slid past one another. Despite its posession of an exoskeleton, it clearly also had an endoskeleton. In fact, around the knees the plates seemed to thin so much that the bone could be seen pressed up against the exposed skin. It was the same on the face, with the only plates present being right above the eyelids, and surrounding the horns. The best way to describe it would be a messy mound of rocks surrounding a stick to hold it up, but instead of rocks and sticks, it was hard, organic chitin.  
The computer had several files on the species, but they were all encrypted beyond that of what Pip's cryptolagy knowledge could crack.  
“Namu?” Noyc said suddenly.  
“Name? My name is Pip.”  
“Pep. Peep. Pup. Pop. Piip? Pipp?”  
“Yeah! Pip!”  
Noyc smiled, which was apparently a universal gesture and not limited to humans.  
“So, Noyc. We're going to earth. You kno-” she was cut off.  
“Eartk! Nu, nu, nu, nu, nu, nu, nu. Nu Eartk!”  
“What's so bad about earth?'  
“Tha bkd mun.”


	28. Intermission Six

Pip had to mentally force herself not to gag as she tipped the bowl she held into her mouth. The soup tasted like black coffee mixed with raw eggs mixed with all manner of other things so bland that they were revolting to the tongue. Still, the girl was hungry, so she gulped it down, before taking it from her mouth and forcing herself not to vomit.  
She looked around the room in which she sat. It was a steel building with glass domes covering every corner, as well as the giant lights hanging from the ceiling.  
Besides the architecture, the place was pretty archaic. It was a soup kitchen, full of tables that seated all kids of homeless and hungry folk.  
The one person she notcied in particular, however, was the one person with a dog. If anyone knew anything about her, they knew that she loved animals. It wasn't common to see a pure white dog on Mars, and especially uncommon for the likes of some homeless kid to own one.  
Still, right next to a short girl with a satchel slung over one of her shoulders, sat a small white japenese dog. Its owner was feeding it scraps of bread, which it accepted with an eager mouth and a wagging tail.  
Pip took her bowl and stood up to take it to the cleaning station, but, on her way, made sure to pass by the dog, and to give it a pat on the head.


	29. Chapter Nineteen

“Guys! We have to tell Skye to change course!” Pip yelled as she raced to the common room. Adonis looked at her drowsily, while everyone else just gave her the “shut up” glance.  
“Yeah, and why is this?” grumbled a half-asleep Cobalt. She had clearly woken the group up from their nap.  
“Noyc said so.”  
“Noyc?” murmered Elliot, “I think you just heard that in a dream..”  
“No, I didn't! The alein, his name is Noyc!”  
This seemed to wake up Elliot, “Wait? You talked to it?”  
“Yes! His name is Noyc!”  
“Eh. Worth a look. You guys don't have to go along,” he said as he stood up and stretched, yawning loudly. And, with that, and with an excited Pip at the lead, the two teenagers made their way over to the back room.  
Noyc had sat down on his table, scratching at the base of one of his horns. Small pieces of chitin fell to the ground and collected on his fingertips.  
“Noyc! Noyc! You've got to tell Elliot about why we can't go to earth!”  
The creature looked at her wearily, “Uh... Itk a lunt stry.”  
“Well, lets hear it,” Elliot grunted.


	30. Intermission Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has aliens

Two figures wandered along the edge of a lake. Friends, truly, and much more than that. Despite this, however, they were different as can be. One tall, one short, one with two horns curving inwards, one with horns that arched behind their head.  
One of royalty, one of peasantry.  
The larger creature, of skin whiter than the freshest snow, flicked its tail in inviation as it began to gracefully leap its way up a formation of rock. The other followed, though struggling with some of the biggest boulders. When they reached the top, they could both overlook the entire lake, shimmering with moonlight from the five moons of the planet.  
The taller sat down, its tail waving back and forth slowly. Its friend followed.  
The long-horned creature placed one arm around their smaller counterpart, and began to speak.  
It told of a story that the smaller had never heard before. It told of a planet known as Earth, where a ruling race thrived through civility and generousity.  
Why must you tell me this, asked the peasant.  
It spoke about Earth's imminent doom. That this doom was already put in place, and the people of earth knew about it. You, it said, you are going to stop it.  
How shall I stop it? This the younger one wondered, but did not speak.  
That is where the conversation ended. The taller humanoid stood to its feet, chitin plates sliding as it did so. With a single wave of its tail, it said farewell, and took one step off the boulder. It landed in the water below, and only emerged to scamper out of the area, chitin soaking wet.


	31. Chapter Twenty

Elliot had no hard time believing in the story he had heard. The earth was doomed, that was concrete fact in his mind.  
He let himself take the lead when they were to tell Skye to turn the ship around.  
“Cobalt. You're the shipswoman here. What Pip says is true. Turn this thing around.”  
Cobalt rolled her eyes in response, “What, that the aggressive alein says staying here is a bad idea? I highly doubt that thing even speaks English.”  
“It does. The Earth is in danger. Doomed, in fact.”  
“You believe this cause that thing said it? Find some proof, could just be a fairy tale.”  
“I believe what it says is proof enough. You are no risk taker, I know you enough to know that. We turn this thing around and drift until we know what's what.”  
“Do you really trust the academy after what they did?” Karen piped up, “They sent you on a suicide op with a faulty ship.”  
“You're not wrong, but we're damn freshmen! We can't just, live on some Saturn moon till we perish!”  
“That isn't the plan.”  
“Then what is, genius?”  
“We go to Noyc's home and save it.”  
“Yep, I'm out. That's stupid.”  
“It does sound foolish. But there is no way we're returning to Earth.” Karen grunted, “Skye, turn this thing around.”  
The helmswoman listened, and everyone had to grab on to something as the entire ship arched upwards and flew upside down for a few moments before righting itself.  
“We're out of food!” Cobalt protested, “We'll die!”  
“This is a top secret government ship,” Caden said, speaking for the first time since he had been injured, “It's got food.”  
“Whatever, Captain Caden. Since I'm obviously not in command here, so whatever the hell you want.”  
“You never really were in the first place.”

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And, so, after the true leader of the group was unofficially put in place, the ship changed course. Thus they began their journey to Mars. This journey truly was not a short one.  
Unlike the Laika, this ship had no half-lightspeed capabilities, so the group was stuck on the ship together, in one room, except for Pip, who commonly went to the back of the ship to hang out with Noyc. After a while, she had found out that their race was called Kubuks, hailing from the planet Uclao. They were exclusively carnivores, and excellent hunters. However, as this ship clearly had a severe lack of small creatures to hunt, so he was forced to resort to rations.  
They had also been having many cultural discussions. Apparently, on Uclao, there were three social classes: Omegas, Betas, and Alphas. Omegas were the lowest, for they had no way to impregnate, and instead were relegated to the duties of carrying and raising children. Betas could both impregnate and be pregnant themselves. They were far more free than Omegas, and often just settled down with another Beta mate. Alphas were the highest of the high. They could only impregnate, and could do anything they wanted, including murdering Omegas and Betas at will. The classes could be told apart by their horns. The bigger the horns, the smaller the class. For males, their horns stuck straight up, while for females, their horns went backwards from their skulls. These gender differences only applied to gender dismorphism, however, as their genetials were completely seperete from their gender.   
The others had spent their time exploring the ship, and discovered some rather questionable things. This included several encrypted documents, blurry videos of a rocky planet, and rooms full of bones and organs. The strangest one of all was a room that had nothing in it except two horns made of pure marble mounted on a statue stand. Noyc had attempted to explain this, but with his limited knowledge of English, couldn't make out the words properly.  
Though there was no real news, the group had at least began to call each other by their names instead of exclusively by insults. Caden, still drunk on adreniline had named the ship “The Nightingale.” Judging by the fact that a non-sober man had come up with it, it wasn't awful.  
Though this was all well and good, the true event to be noted was when the ship at last landed on Mars.  
Mars was, at the current time, the most populated planet in the Earthen solar system, even exceding the planet which the system was named for. It was built like a giant Las Vegas, with casinos, bars, and malls covering most of the surface.  
Though everyone had been complaining about being stuck on the ship for so long, no one was too eager to get off. Living on a ship for many weeks had made the prospect of scurrying around on some dust planet very unappealing. However, Caden convinced them and, with Pip and Cobalt helping their now-concious pilot along, the group headed out into the streets. This time, instead of crash landing into a desert in the middle of nowhere, they had parked their car in a communal parking garage. Though everyone knew the police were pretty lax on mars, they still removed their liscense plates, in case anyone recognized them. This was incredibly unlikely, however, as no one besides governmental ships even had liscense plates anymore.  
With that decently ridiculous bit of ship hijacking, the group left the garage, with Caden at the lead. For once, Cobalt didn't protest this.  
Pip sped up momentarily until she was next to Karen, who was standing right behind her boyfriend.  
“So, what's the plan with landing on Mars?” she asked.  
“The ship needs fuel, we're running out of food. And, well, we're going to find out everything we can about this Uclao place,” she responded. Pip was her favorite out of the first years, so she didn't respond with a sarcastic retort as she would have to, say, Cobalt.  
“Mm. What about Noyc?”  
“Noyc stays in the ship. I'm pretty sure walking with an alien would be considered suspicous, even for Mars.”  
“I guess you're right. I've been speaking to him some more. He says that it's his destiny, or something,, to save his planet.”  
“Probably some religious thing.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“You know, planets all have their own religions. Maybe it's some kind of weird prophecy they've got.”  
“Maybe. But still, we should still go.”  
“I don't see where else we could go. Floating around in space forever dosen't sound too fun.”  
“It'd be good to at least have a mission.”  
“Did he tell you anything else?”  
“Well, yeah. Something disturbing actually.”  
“I'm listening.”  
“He said that his species had, like, taken over Earth.”  
“And?”  
“Nothing. That's all he said.”  
“Well, that's... strange.”  
“Scary.”  
“Both.”


	32. Intermission Eight

An old rusted bell chimed as a young Kubok wandered his way into a run-down, shabby tavern. Through sleepy eyes, he gazed up at the bartender wiping away at a glass. He put his hands on the bar, ordered a Pearl Eye, paid with a few copper coins, and sat at a table next to the large landscape window at the front. He took a sip of his drink, feeling the liqour burn as it slid down his throat. It didn't take long before the white skin beneath his shell began to warm, and he took a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it and took a few puffs of it before putting it out.  
“You know, it ain't exactly bar hours, kid,” the bartender said, picking up another glass to polish.  
“I know,” the younger customer responded,”Waiting for someone.”  
“Your beta?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Ah. Just get out of here once it gets late. You know how it gets, late nights and all. These omega bars aren't the safest places.”  
“Of course,” he grunted before taking another gulp of liquor. He blinked towards the door as it swung open and its bell rung.  
His tail began to wag slightly as his beta stepped through. She was far taller than both him and the bartender, wearing a lavish vest, with two giant horns branching from her head. She walked to the bar, ordered a Cosmic Wing with Lime. She took a long drink of the wine before sitting down across from the young omega.  
“You're here,” she said. Her voice was smooth, yet it was the voice of someone not to be messed with.  
“Of course. Cigarette?” The male offered.  
“No thanks. I got my own. Cigars.”  
“Yeah, I forget.”  
“You tend to do that when you're drunk.”  
“Mhm. So, why'd you call me here?”  
“Why does there have to be a reason? I just wanted to see you.”  
“Oh! Yeah, yes! That's a good reason. I was just assuming..”  
“It's all good, hun. I just wanted to see you. And getting a drink dosen't hurt.”  
The male nodded and raised his glass, followed soon by the female. They clinked the glasses together and tipped them so that they mixed together.  
They both took a drink of their now-mixed drinks, both already showing signs of intoxication.  
“There was a lady looking for you out there, y'know,” The woman said after a moment.  
“Looking for me?”  
“Saying your name.”  
“I don't see why.”  
“Me neither. I'm just saying, be careful. You might have a bounty on your head and not even know about it.”  
“I can't just stay in here forever.”  
“I'll get some beta to escort you.”  
“No, no, that's okay. I wouldn't want you to misuse your status for the sake of me. I'll be fine out there. Must just be some drunken kid.”  
“Must be. Just don't go near her. You'll be safe.”  
“As safe as I can be in this hellhole.”  
He took one last drink before tossing the glass on the ground. The rest of the liquor pooled in a circle around it, though it remained intact.  
“Good luck. Stay safe.”  
“I'll be fine.”  
And, with that, he left the bar, hearing the bell ring as he went. His skin was still warm from the alcohol, and his head still buzzing from the nicotine, but he managed to stay upright as he tread down the old street ahead of him. Several other Kuboks were around, most smoking or visibly high on something. A few kids, most wearing bulky helmets, sat in large groups, probably involved in some kind of cyberattack on a fellow hacking gang. Damn kids.  
He made a point to toss them a cigarette, which their leader gladly took and lit by scraping it against the rock.  
“Seen anybody out here recently, looking for someone?” he asked. The leader gestured mindlessly, and though he didn't want to go against his friend's wishes, curiousity got the better of him, and he approached the woman. Her gaze drifted to him, but she said nothing.  
“You're looking for me? Well, here I am,” he said, something so stupid that anyone who had done it sober was dumber than a sparrow.  
She adjusted her visor and clicked it off. With graceful steps, which were counteracted by her rough chewing of her cigar, she walked towards him. She then dug into her pocket, which scared him, as he assumed she was taking out a firearm. Instead, she took out a blue pill and handed it to him.  
He looked at her with confusion until she rolled her eyes and took a small flask from her breast pocket. She was obviously telling him to take it.  
Not willing to invoke her wrath, and still incredibly intoxicated, he placed the blue capsule on his tongue and washed it down with a gulp of wine.  
This was obviously not a good idea, which he only realized a few seconds after taking the pill. For a couple of moments, he felt as if he could feel everything happening in his body. He felt the pill slide down his throat, and into his stomach with a splash of acid as it landed. Electric tingles covered his arms.  
Then he blacked out.

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When he woke up, he felt far more sober than he did when he was knocked out. Instead of the cold, hard cement of the street he expected to be on, he was on a pile of pillows and blankets. It wasn't exactly a proper bed, but it was close.  
Though he felt more sober than he had when he had fallen asleep, he was definently not completely sober, or anywhere close for that matter. His normal instinct in the situation would to be looking to see where he was, but his drunk instinct was to roll over in bed, because it was comfortable.  
However, his drunk instincts didn't get to take over, as someone soon entered the room. It wasn't the Kubok who he had given him the pill, but it was another female. An omega, clearly, with horns so short they nearly touched the back of her head.  
She was dressed in thin clothes, with a large blue bow on her back tying them all together. She carried a small plate of food, which was piled with various colors of meat. She placed it in front of his blanket pile.  
He gave it a weary look before sitting up, for, if there was one thing drunken people liked more than sleep, it was food. Without hesitation, he picked up one of the slices in his claws, and shoved it in his mouth. The waiter simply looked at him, emotionless, as he wolfed down the rest of the dish.  
“Olor would like to see you once you are sober, sir.”  
“Sober? I'm sober, perfectly fine.”  
“Mm. Stand up, Nyco.”  
Nyco was surprised. How did she know his name? In awe, he followed her command, using the wall as a support. She roughly grabbed his hand and led the way out of the room.  
“We're glad you're here. We've been waiting for you.”  
“Waiting for me?”  
“Well, sure. You're only the greatest hacker on all of Uclao.”


	33. Chapter Twenty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an old lady in this one

Night was beginning to take over the sky when the group settled down at a small, 24/7 family resturant. A jolly woman invited them in and made them plates of pickled rabbit, which they wolfed down.  
Karen left Caden in charge of the group while she went to get more rations for the ship. Cobalt intially protested, saying that they didn't need a babysitter, but eventually gave up.  
“Cobalt, you don't gotta be so upset,” Adonis grumbled, “This mission never had a captain in the first place.”  
Cobalt huffed at this and turned the other way.  
“Pip,” Caden said as he finished his last piece of meat, “You have your computer, correct?”  
“Of course,” she responded with a nod.  
“Find whatever you can about these, alien, thi-” he was interrupted by Swanson barking at him. Skye, now fully awake and probably sober, calmed him and fed him a slice of rabbit.  
Pip gave a mocking salute and took her computer from where it had been strapped to her back, opening it and watching as it booted up.  
“I'm still amazed that you can operate that thing. It's got like, the most security I've ever seen,” Cobalt commented.  
The computer scientist didn't respond, as they were already wrapped up in their typing.  
About three minutes later, she responded, “It would be easier with a helmet.”  
“Whatever,”  
“Hm.”  
And, with a mutual series of grunts, it grew silent. The kindly resturant owner brought them some cider and spoke with Caden about all kinds of things happening on Mars.  
“So, where ya headed?”  
“God knows where.”  
“Ah, some young wanderers.”  
Pip's typing was rhythemic throughout the night, but it wasn't long before everyone, except her, of course, fell asleep. Even Swanson eventually began to pace before he curled up at Skye's feet.  
When Karen returned, she saw the girl still typing away. She ran her fingers through her hair, paid the resturant owner, and closed her laptop. Pip let out a grunt, but even she was tired enough to fall asleep on the spot. Karen stayed awake till the rest of the group awoke. She led them back to the ship, which was now fully fueled, and everyone scrambeled on.  
“Found anything?” Caden asked as soon as everyone was settled in the common room.  
“Mhm. A lot, truly,” Pip answered, “Encrypted files. Some too complex, even for me, some not. They were all ship logs. At least a hundred ships landed on Earth in the past month, and not a single one of them left.”  
“This is odd?”  
“For Earth, yes” Adonis interrupted, “Ships big enough to be put on record can't stay for very long.”  
“Yeah, exactly.”  
“And you believe that these ships belong to these.. aliens?”  
“Yes. There's no other explantion.”  
“You asked your boyfriend about it yet?”  
“First of all, grow up. Second of all, I've been on this ship just as long as you've been.”  
“You should check on it,” Adonis said, “Don't you have to feed it?”  
“No, he's an immortal being, of course I have to feed it!”  
“Sorry, sorry. Just asking.”  
Pip grunted as she stood up, stretched, and made her way to the back of the ship.


	34. Intermission Nine

Noyc was led to a room with nothing but a single desk in its center. A female sat behind it. An alpha, clearly. Her horns were even longer than her arms. However, one of them was snapped off at the half-way point. This was clearly no posh, fancy alpha. She meant buisness.  
“Ah. Nyco. I've been waiting for you.”  
Noyc was about to point out that he was not a hacker, but the words wouldn't come out of his throat. It was as if he had swallowed sand. He just couldn't form words.  
“You must be confused. Have a seat,” she said. He heard someone exit the room, and then someone else entered.  
“Mith, get this guy some coffee. He looks like hes on the damn verge of death,” she said, commanding the Kubok who had entered the room, “My name is Olor. An alpha, you can tell. I'm sure you already know me, however.”  
“I'm sorry miss, but I cannot say I do,” Nyco responded as the woman handed him a cup of steaming coffee. He reconginzed her as the one who had given him the pill.  
“Well, then, I must introduce you to my story. I am the heir to the throne,” at this, he choked on his coffee, “I understand your surprise. I was reported dead years ago. I promise you, however, that I am very much alive. You see, I learned that our queen is a beta. She birthed me, instead of the king. She tried to kill me but I escaped. I lost a horn in the battle.”  
“The queen is a beta?”  
“Yes, she's a beta. The king is an omega, though. Now, onto why I brought you here. You're the greatest hacker on this whole planet.”  
“I hate to interrupt an alpha, but those days are behind me.”  
“You can still hack?”  
“I can. I don't wish to.”  
“Well, you'll have to. We're overthrowing the queen.”  
“That's impossible!”  
“We aren't asking you to fight. We simply need you to hack into the channel she broadcasts on the screens in Utopia City. We need to tell everyone who she really is. They overthrow her, I take the lead.”  
“That all?”  
“That's all I ask of you. We will house you, feed you, and we have plenty of cigarettes for you. All we ask is that you get us on the air.”  
“I'll do it.”


	35. Chapter Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm assuming I wrote this at 3 am cause the amount of spelling errors is horrendous

Pip's legs swung over the side of the couch she had dragged into Noyc's room. The alien was talking to her as she typed away on her laptop.  
“How's it going?” he asked.  
“It's difficult. There's no 'free the alien button.”  
He chuckled at this. For the past week, Pip had been working on disabling the force field trapping her friend. Her teammates had no idea of it, however, as none of them trusted Noyc in the slightest. Still, they trusted her enough to have set their course out of the solar system, and to a nearby inhabited planet to land until they could prove his claims.  
“Mhm. I didn't expect there to be,” ever since Pip had met him, she had been teaching him to better his english. He was very intelligent, and picked up on the correct pronunciations quickly, “They were never easy on security.”  
“May I ask, why you are here?”  
“Here? I told you, right?”  
“I don't mean not on Uclao. I mean, here. In a medical research vessel.”  
“Oh, um.”  
“You don't have to tell me if it brings back bad memories.”  
“No, no it's okay. I don't really rememeber much. But, well, I believe that I was sent here so that the humans could study me. I was a criminal so they didn't truly care about what happened to me. So, I was brought here. They didn't really hurt me, well, I don't know that. I wasn't exactly awake for the whole thing.”  
“Oh. That dosen't really sound fun.”  
“Trust me, it wasn't.”  
“So, do you know what happened to her?”  
“She evacuated to earth.”  
“Earth?”  
“Yeah?”  
“An alein ship landed on earth not long before we left.”  
“She made it safely?”  
“She was captured.”  
Noyc jumped to his feet and pressed his hands against the force field.  
“We have to rescue her,” he said. It was the most austere Pip had ever seen the alein.  
“We can't. You know better than any of us that we can't go back to earth.”  
“I know what I said, but I must take it back! We need her help! Shes the only one who can truly liberate the planet.”  
“You sure?”  
“Yes!”  
“The others will have me dead if I tell them that!”  
“I know, I know. But, you must!”  
“I'll tell Skye once they're asleep.”  
“Thank you!”

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Giving a bunch of teenagers alcohol was never a good idea.  
Giving a bunch of teenagers of alcohol while they were alone in the middle of space was ever worse.  
Giving a bunch of teenagers of alcohol while they were alone in the middle of space and being chased by a fleet of a government ships was pretty much the worst thing anyone could ever do.  
But, since Cobalt and the others were unsupervised teenagers, they obviously managed to procure alcohal. On one of their supply-stops, Cobalt had convinced Caden to buy a case of beer bottles, and, since space is pretty much a lawless wasteland that far from Earth, they were able to buy it with no hassle.  
Now, on the ship, everyone except Pip, Noyc, and Skye was chugging a bottle of beer in the common room. Pip had locked the door to the cockpit, and locked herself in the back room with Noyc.  
Though not entirely sober herself (she had given in when Cobalt insisted she have a few shots), the computer scientist was still focused on her work.  
However, though all previous attempts at freeing Noyc had been unsuccesful, this time, as if the alcohal had triggered something within her, she did it.  
With a rumble and a noise resembling a sword being slid from its sheathe, the invisible fence was lowered. Noyc took a step forward, then another, and another, and stood right in front of Pip.  
Neither of them spoke, but a smile crossed their faces.  
“We did it,” Noyc said, relief written on his face.  
“Question.”  
“Yes?”  
“Can I touch your shell.”  
“Yes? Um, why?”  
“I-I kinda just want to know what it feels like,” she responded. The alien chuckled, and reached out his arm. She touched it with one finger before bursting out laughing.  
That was before she was knocked backwards. The entire ship lurched forwards, and a scream of fear was heard from the cockpit.  
Pip windmilled her arms as she fell and hit her head on the couch's armrest. Noyc held onto the table that had served as his bed for so long, and managed to stay upright.  
“What the hell was that!”  
Pip didn't respond. She was knocked out cold, limp on the ground.  
Noyc was completely screwed.  
Yet a frightened Kobok was a fleeing Kubok, and he was no exception. The creature made a beeline for the door, unlocked it easily, and yanked it open. He ran to the common room, and stopped as five drunken faces stared in his direction.  
“Can aleins drink..” slurred Cobalt, roughly shoving a beer bottle in his direction. He, still panicked, shook his head and sprinted towards the cockpit.  
Skye had been the obvious source of the scream, as she was tauter than a string, and her hands were shaking as they yanked around the controls.  
From the landscape window wrapping around the room, he could see the two ships flanking them on either side. The ship arched up and down, but the other ships followed it.  
Skye began yelling into the helmet, “Refusal to board! We are not hostiles! Disengage!”  
She repeated this, and seemed to be getting more and more agitated with the responses she was receiving. With a frustrated snarl, she forced the control stick to the left, causing the ship to barrel roll downwards and flip into an aileron roll. Noyc was forced to grab onto the back of the pilot's chair, and watch as ground quickly approached the ship's hull.  
As soon as he was sure they were going to crash, Skye yanked the controls upwards, but the plane didn't respond quick enough, and while it was turned sideways, one wing struck the rocky ground full force. The thrusters screamed into overdrive as the ship rushed across the planet's surface, but it couldn't right itself. It got off the ground, before its good wings was forced into the rock, and the ship skidded into a stop with sparks flying at the hull.  
Though it was hesitant, one the following ships landed next to its grounded persuee. Nyco, at least somewhat familiar with how a basic ship worked, yanked the helmet off of the pilot's head and threw it to the ground. She slumped over, and her dog raced to her assistance. Not wanting to disturb the animal, he left the cockpit and went into the common room.  
Everyone except Adonis was passed out, and he was slumped agaisnt a wall, vomit droolling from his jaw. Someone was banging on the door, but he wasn't about to go down without a fight.  
Grabbing a pipe from the ceiling that was halway detached, he stood by the doorway, ready to defend thos who had liberated him.


	36. Intermission Ten

Nyco stretched as he took off his goggles, finishing a long session of being immersed in hyperspace. He looked around, examing for the hundreth time the room he was in.  
It was quaint, with a few windows that he had drawn blinds over, although small streams of light still managed to weasel their way in. There were fancy engravings along the edges of the walls, and wooden swirls protruding from the beige walls.  
Olor had offered him a place in the planning room, but he rejected, instead requesting somewhere quiet to work. She set him up with an old office room that no one had used in a while.  
It was intriguing that the place had an office of all things. After all, it was a villa owned by the alpha. Despite her stats as a fugitive she was easily able to procure money from god knows where, thanks to her place on the caste system.  
His task was surprisingly hard. He had never expected that getting into a TV channel could be so difficult.  
When he was about to put his helmet back on, he was startled by a voice.  
“Coffee?” Olor said. She had brought a kitchen stool into the room, and was perched atop it, “Oh! Did I scare you? My apolagies. I keep forgetting that you kinda get dissorientated after having them goggles on for a while.”  
“It's no problem. I didn't hear you come in, that's all.”  
“Offer still stands. Coffee?”  
“No thanks. Caffiene and cyberspace don't mix.”  
“Ah. Is there anythign you do need? You've hardly eaten. I can get Mith to make you something. She's a great cook, trust me on that.”  
“You forget the resilliance of omegas. I'm alright.”  
“Shall I leave to let you work?”  
“You can stay. Just don't be surprised if you scare me when I wake up.”  
“I won't. Promise!”  
With a nod, Nyco lowered his goggles back onto his eyes. With a press of a button, the breath was sucked from his lungs, and he felt like he was falling.  
Then he landed.  
On his feet, the world sprawled out around him. But he was no longer in the world of villas, coffee, and caste systems.  
He was in the lawless wasteland of the cyber world.  
Tall buildings of purple and green surrounded him, and his ears could faintly hear the quiet, almost ghostly sound of fingers on keyboards.  
Other things walked past him, though they didn't take the forms of Koboks, or anything of the sort. Instead, they simply appeared in the form of fleeting lines of green code.  
Off in the distance, a particularly worn down building, constructd from lines of html text, as well as javascript and css code, was being hounded rapidly dosappearing lines of sql injections.  
But that wasn't what he was interested in. Instead, with a few presses and “dr where” commands, he had strolled to where he needed to be:  
The infamous imperial station.  
It was the largest building by far, with one central base that split off into thousands more. Though everyone knew it was there, hacking it was completey insane. The very idea was laughed at. Even boisterous, belligerent cybergangs wouldn't dare approach it.  
But pacifistic ex-hackers would.  
He touched the code block, and immediately saw thousands of directories open before him. Getting even this far was unheard of, ever for the masters, but for Noyc, it was as easy as breaking the defenses built by a script kiddie. He selected the directory he wanted, and found himself in yet another part of the building. This part was rather small, structured with a tiny, vertical line of code reaching straight upwards, with layers and layers of defense twisting around it like snakes.  
This thing had been his menace since he first got the job.  
Once he got to the central code, it would be easy, but he was loosing hope of ever achieving that. For every loose end he found in the code allowed him widdle away nothing but a fraction of the guard. The only thing keeping him going was the one thing anyone who had ever pulled on a roll of yarn knew:  
You find one loose end, and it all falls apart.  
Dismissing the outer securities, this was true. The sloppily designed inner defenses were all connected at the top. Untwist one, and he was in.  
He was distracted in that moment by the gazes he could feel on his non-existant-in-cyberspace-back. Several cyber wanderers had seen his strange directory changing in their command windows and had come to check it out.  
He did his best to ignore them as he started to search the inner code that kept him from the central text. It was all secure stl, scanners, whitelisters.  
Pass-code enterer.  
Bingo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry


	37. Chapter Twenty Three

It didn't take long for them to bust the door down. It wasn't designed to keep attackers out, after all, it was designed to keep air in.  
To Noyc's surprise, however, there was no army coming for him. Instead, there were two soldiers armed with stun guns, and a man with thick-rimmed glasses who wore a lab coat that dragged behind him.  
Sure, as soon as they saw him, they attacked (at least the soldiers did) but they truly were quite weak. With two swings of the pipe, they were crumbled onto the ground.  
This fight then led to something far more awkward than Noyc had ever experienced in his rather short lifespan.  
The scientist was just, staring at him. Emotionless and unblinking.  
That was, until he fell backwards, and Noyc spun around, realizing that an intoxicated Adonis had just tazed the man with the weapon he kept on his belt.   
Man, did he have good aim, even when drunk.  
The alien and the teenager shared a look of mutual panic before they rushed their seperate ways. Noyc to the cockpit, Adonis to the unconcious scientist.  
'How much diffeent from cyberspace could it be,' the former reassued himself.  
“Why is there a dead man on the floor?” slurred the latter, out loud.  
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As Noyc shoved the pilot's helmet over his horns, and he made a mental note to apolagize to Skye for destroying the thing, Adonis was faced with something even a sober person would find confusing.  
A stranger wearing a white lab coat was on the ground in front of him, occasionally twitching his fingers. Judging by the fact that he had been escorted by two armed men, who's bodies also lay on the ground, this visitor was not friendly.  
A group of, mostly drunken, teenagers would be no match for them, he decided, and immediately began hauling the bodies out of the still-open airlock. First the two soldiers, then-  
The ship was taking off. With one unconcious scientist still left on the ship, he raced in and pulled shut what was left of the airlock doors.  
While he was preoccupied, Noyc had carried Skye, who wasn't even close to being fully awoken, out into the common room and laid her on the couch. Swanson sat on her chest protectively, paws on her shoulders. He was alert, weary of the alien on board.  
Adonis shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts and focus on the task at hand. Unconconcious scientist. He knew he couldn't throw the poor sod off the plane, so that plan was out of the question almost instantly.  
After thinking briefly, he resolved to bring him to what was known as Noyc's room. For he was not strong in the slightest, he simply grabebd the body by the hands and dragged it away. Swanson watched, but didn't follow as he normally would have. Skye's safety was his top priority in that moment.  
The teenager, who was becoming more and more sober by the minute, situated the body on a bed next to the wall where it seemed Noyc had once been contained to some degree.  
After making a creepily loud “ach” noise, he noticed a pair of handcuffs that seemed to be attached to the bedframe. He picked one up, laid it on the mans wrist, and made a weird noise of triumph.  
It was the perfect crime. That man would never escape.

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Noyc had been correct; Flying a ship wasn't too different from being in cyberspace. As soon as he shoved on the helmet, the wind was knocked out of him, and he found himself in some strange type of virtual reality.  
He gripped the steering half-wheel subconciously, and thought 'ship, I want you to lift up.'  
Nothing. Okay, maybe..  
He imagined that he was lifting off the ground. He imagined thrusters heating up and wings unfolding.  
Then he realized he wasn;t imagining it.  
He was flying a ship!


	38. Intermission Eleven

On the tenth and final day of work, Nyco had abandoned his “caffiene dosen't mix with cyberspace” ideolagy and was functioning almost entirely on coffee that Olor brought him constantly. He hardly even took off his googles, and when he did, it was only to drink another mug.  
Still, he was making good progress. The security spiral had been stripped down to its last few lines of code, and, to his great surprise, several techy omega children who, quote, “had nothing better to do,” had assisted him in the task. Together, they were able to strip down the code to its barest threads.  
Nyco took a deep breath as he attempted to collect himself. This was the toughest line of security he'd ever cracked, and he wasn't about to be thwarted by one location scanner.  
He had tried everything with it, from common location spoofing to changing the location the computer was looking for, but nothing worked. He knew that, if he was going to break this system, he was going to need to follow its rules.  
He exited cyberspace, and once again he found himself gasping for breath. Leaving or entering the realm would do that to you.  
“Well, that was short,” said Olor, who was nursing a large glass of tea while perched upon her stool.  
“Yeah, yeah. For a reason though, I admit.” he responded. A glass of coffee had been placed in front of him, which he gladly began to chug.  
“Well, what's with the secrecy?”  
Licking the remaining liquid from his lips, he answered, “Well, there's one last thing I need to get in. And, it's a lot.”  
“Hm?”  
“I need to go to the imperial broadcasting base. Once we get there, you can broadcast.”  
“If it's what we must do, it is what we must do. I'll call Knip”  
Noyc responded with a grunt. He couldn't believe that they were going to be going into enemy territory with that guy.  
Knip was what most humans would call a “twat.” He was stuck up, and cared about nothing except Olor. He left Noyc alone much, but he was the sole pilot, (well the sole pilot that wasn't busy trying to configure a camera), so the group really had no choice. If Noyc was being honest, the second pilot wasn't exactly perferable either. He was a jerk who snorted cosntantly for no reason. Alas, he was good with the matters of mechanical objects, and thus he was kept around.  
The Kobok watched as she left and hung his goggles around his neck. He wasn't exactly excited for the project to be finished. Sure, he wanted to see his beta, but he had nowhere to go. He was the bottom of the barrel when it came to the caste system. He was just an omega.


	39. Chapter Twenty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know how alcohol works

It took seven hours for the entire crew to become sober, however, it only took one for Pip to awake. She claimed to have been hit in such a manner that she fell unconcious, but the rest of those on the ship believed she had drank more alchoal than she had admitted to.  
Ethanolic side effects beside, the group had a lot to worry about. First of all, their pilot was badly injured in the dogfight. Second of all, their plane was a mess; it was a mircale that Noyc was able to even get it off the ground. The worst issue, however, was the scientist that had stumbled upon their plane.  
They deduced the scientist to be female, and generally non-hostile. In fact, she seemed incredibly confused about what had happened to her. Upon questioning her about the reason behind the dogfight, she responded with, “My corgi got into a fight?” Pip resolved that it was temporary memory loss, and to accommodate the scientist until she was recovered. She was kept in the back room (mainly to stop Swanson from being aggressive towards her.)  
As time went on, which in this context meant only about a day or such, she still hadn't regained her memory, but she did have some insight on who she was.  
She explained that her name was Wren Hiemalas, a twenty year old scientist who who was part of a military division dedicated to containing extraterrestrial phenomenon. They had found a strange alien pod washed up on the oceans of earth, and within it found a heavily injured alien creature. As it was too dangerous to keep it on earth, it was contained within an airborne vehicle. The plane had been studying the creature when they received notification of a stolen ship in the area. A stolen ship holding another alien of the same species.  
Then, everything went black for her. She described it as if she were falling, then she lost conciousness.  
Next thing she knew, she woke up on the ship, with a heavily drunk teenager staring at her with unfocused eyes.  
At around the same time, the flight of the ship had become sloppy. It was found that, since he had nowhere near the amount of formal training Skye had, Noyc was only able to fly for short amounts of time. Skye had mostly recovered, though she insisted she had been fine in the first place, and was able to take the pilot's seat again.  
When Nyco spoke to the scientist, he turned aggressive.  
“What do you mean you don't know the Kobok's name!” he yelled, shelled hands balled into fists.  
“She didn't learn English! She couldn't talk to us! I swear!” Wren explained in a panic. Cobalt was watching with utmost distaste for the entire situation.  
“Well, then. Describe them.”  
“They looked like you, mostly. But a sharper chin, and horns that came from the same places but, they extended I think four feet about, backwards.”  
“An alpha then. Mhm. Thank you,” with this, Noyc walked off. Wren was relieved at this, gave Cobalt a glare, and looked away.  
Pip was waiting outside the room, holding Swanson, who wasn't very happy about his owner becoming a pilot once more. Nyco looked at her, and then spoke in a low voice,  
“I think Olor is alive.”  
“Olor?” Pip esponded in a questioning tone, “You mean, the alpha?”  
“Yes.”  
“I heard the conversation, but she never got off the planet, did she?”


	40. Intermission Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NAME DROP

It was the middle of the night when the ship landed, and all five moons were overhead. Knip insisted on staying with the ship, stating that, “This whole plan is ludicrous, and I refuse to waste my life on it.” Olor hadn't argued, and soon only she and Nyco were silently creeping through one of the building's imposing corridors.  
The pair rushed to the connectivity room, and Olor resolved to stand guard at the door while Nyco shoved the goggles onto his eyes.  
He was prepared for the loss of breath, and it didn't take long before he found himself standing before the tower of code that had been his menace for the past near-fortnight. The last line of code was completely gone once he pinged it, and awe overtook him as he stared at the now-unprotected script standing before him.  
Taking a deep breath, he typed in a few commands, then took off the goggles.  
He and Olor shared a mutual nod, and they watched with bated breath as the alpha brought forth her camera and began to film.  
It was a rusty old thing, but it worked. She held it in front of her face, and began to speak.  
“Koboks of Uclao. I have news for you, but I cannot be long,” she began. They could hear the hundreds of propaganda screens outside echoing the message, “Your dear queen is no more than a beta! She killed the true heires-”  
The noise cut off. The door to the room slammed shut.  
The two looked at one another in sheer panic. Gas filled the room as the two attempted to sink low to the ground.  
Nyco watched his alpha fall to the ground, and he followed suit.

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Nyco awoke, 20,000 leagues into god knows where.


End file.
